
\ 



\ 



PENITENTIAL HYMN 

OF 

JUDAH AND ISRAEL 

AFTER THE SPIRIT. 



London : 
Printed by Si'Ottiswoode & Co. 
New -street- Square. 



THE 



PENITENTIAL HYMN 

OF 

.1 T 1) A II AND ISRAEL 

AFTER THE SPIRIT. 



OF 

THE FIFTY-THIRD CHAPTER OF ISAIAH. 



BY 

THE REV. MOSES MARGOLIOUTH, M.A., 

FORMERLY EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE LATE BISHOP OF KILDARE. 



LONDON: 

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 

1856. 



^5 IS 15 

IS 54 



SOURCE ttHKNew 



HAY 11 J95T 



TO 



THE REV. JOHN BYRON, M.A. 




TOKEN OF GRATEFUL APPRECIATION OF TENDER KINDNESS EVINCED 
BY HIM, AT A DISPENSATION OF GRIEVOUS TRIAL, 
TO HIS HUMBLE FRIEND AND BROTHER 
IN THE SACRED MINISTRY, 




VICAR OF KILLINGHOLME AND HABROUGH, 



m THE COUNTY AND DIOCESE OF LINCOLN, 



THE AUTHOR, 



PREFACE 

TO 

THE FIRST EDITION, 



The following Lectures were delivered in the Parish Church of 
Glasnevin during the Sundays of Lent, 1845. The author had no 
intention of submitting them to the criticism of the public at large. 
His object was simply to instruct his own congregation, according as 
the Lord enabled him, from that wonderful chapter, the Fifty-Third 
of Isaiah. 

The late Bishop of Kildare, however, having read those Lectures, 
strongly recommended their publication in a note his Lordship 
addressed to the author, on the 7th of April, 1845, from which the 
following is an extract : " My dear Margoliouth, — I return you the two 
last of a series of Sermons which it would be unjust to withhold from 
the public at large," &c. This intimation, together with a subsequent 
conversation on the subject, led the author to resolve to act on that 
pious prelate's suggestion ; and he now, in the name of the Lord, submits 
them to the Christian Church, humbly praying that the reading of them 
may, through Divine aid, tend to remove some apparent obscurities, 
which still hang over this chapter. 

The author feels at a loss how to express his great esteem for that 
Father in God to whose memory the following volume is dedicated * ; 
he has therefore determined to borrow the following characteristic 
inscription from a monument set apart to his memory in Christ Church 
Cathedral, Dublin, the scene of his labours : — 

"* The First Edition was inscribed to the members of the surviving family of that lamented 
" Father in God." 



/ 



®o dje JilUmorg 

OP 

THE HON. AND RIGHT REVEREND CHARLES LINDSAY, D.D. 

OP THE NOBLE HOUSE OF B A LC AURAS, 

Lord Bishop of Kildare and Dean of Christ Church, 
One of Her Majesty's Right Honourable Privy Council in Ireland, 
Who presided over the Cathedral for 42 years, 
From a.d. 1804, till 8th of August, 1846, 
When he departed this life, rejoicing in the fulness of 
Christian hope. 

Faithful in the discharge of his duties, firm in his principles, 
Sound in his understanding and doctrine, he retained all his energies 
To the end of his protracted career. 
Truly with him " the hoary head was a crown of glory." 
His aspect was so benign and venerable, 
In the devout discharge of his sacred functions, 
Even to his 86th year, 
That all acknowledged his presence to be the best comment 
upon Leviticus xix. 24., 
" Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, 
And honour the face of the old man, and fear thy God." 
To record these their sentiments of respect and affection, 
The Dean and Chapter of Christ Church have erected this Tablet, 

As an humble tribute to his departed worth. 
" O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, where is thy victory ? " 
" Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, 
" Through our Lord Jesus Christ." 



THE 



PREFACE 

TO 

SECOND EDITION. 



The author, though he acknowledges the cogency of the remark likely 
to be made, — that the call for a Second Edition of a work does not 
necessarily demand a Second Preface, — yet deems it expedient, in this 
instance, to prefix a few remarks to the present issue. 

In fact, the following observations constitute the sole difference 
between the first and this edition. The author has it not in his power 
to recommend the present volume as an improvement upon the past, 
as is the privilege of some ; he is forced to be content to abide by the 
features of the first impression ; he found no reason for altering either 
his exegetical or critical disquisitions ; he cannot therefore offer to the 
Public anything else but an accurate and faithful copy of the First 
Edition. 

Whilst the author, as a matter of course, felt gratified that his 
humble production had met with general approbation from the most 
eminent Biblical Scholars and Critics, in this and other countries, he 
did not feel hurt or displeased at his adverse or hostile reviewers. 
In the first place, their number was small ; and, in Ihe second place, 
their remarks bear the unmistakeable evidence that they were hastily 
conceived and prematurely uttered. 

The author feels a little disappointed that the erudite editor of 
Paley's " Evidences of Christianity," * who quoted in his notes the 

* " A View of the Evidences of Christianity. In Three Parts. By William 
Paley, D.D., Archdeacon of Carlisle. A new Edition, with Introduction, Notes, and 
Supplement, by the Rev. T. R. Birks, M.A., late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge."— 
Published by the Religious Tract Society. 

b 



10 



translation given in this volume of the eighth verse, did not analyse 
critically, grammatically, and analogically the original Hebrew, inde- 
pendently of all translations. 

The author's translation of the eighth verse was canvassed more 
than that of any other, not only by the critical annotator of Paley, 
but also by others, more or less able writers than Mr. Birks. How- 
ever, after a minute examination, the translation and the exposition 
are left in statu quo. 

Ten years of experience and study, since the publication of the 
First Edition, lead the author to reiterate emphatically that the most 
literal and natural translation of the line — • 

nrw to rm run 

is not, " and who shall declare his generation." This is meaningless, 
even according to Mr. Birks's ingenious paraphrase. The only correct 
and rational rendering is that given in this volume, namely, " Who 
can speak of His habitation ? " A brief sojourn in Syria or Egypt 
will convince even the most self-opinionated Critic that he must re- 
signedly part with his old translation of the above inspired sentence. 

The Eastern traveller constantly receives invitations to the Dor or 
Dar of one native or another, — not to the native's generation, but to 
his hospitable abode, be it house, hut, cot, or tent. Numberless in- 
stances might be quoted of the modern use of the term applicable to 
the word in question, corroborative of the new translation of it in 
this volume. The expression, however, will receive further illustra- 
tion in the author's forthcoming great work, which he trusts may soon 
be submitted to the press.* 

Some writer in " The Christian Annotator " stoutly objected to 
the new rendering ; but it would appear that the objector had no 
confidence in the potency of his own opposition, for he could not muster 



* See Prospectus, at the end of the volume. 



II 



courage to risk his reputation as a Biblical Annotaior, and therefore 
prudently kept his name back, and by this nameless expedient 
escapes notice. Verily the anonymous privilege must be a great boon 
to faint-hearted opiners. 

The author feels himself indebted to a very angry review, which 
appeared in " The Jewish Chronicle," for a very valuable and 
important testimony to the general accuracy of the author's con- 
struction of the second part of the verse under consideration, viz. : — 

" But he was cut off from the land of the living, 

" On account of the transgression of my people, 

" On account of the stroke that should have come upon them," 

in lieu of the existing rendering, — 

" For He was cut off out of the land of the living : 
" For the transgression of my people was He stricken." 

The Hebrew reviewer stated that the learned Dr. Zunz, in his 
Jewish-German translation of the Hebrew Bible, had anticipated the 
author ; and the energetic writer more than hinted that the author 
was guilty of an unacknowledged appropriation. The accused can 
only aver that he never saw Dr. Zunz's version of the Old Testament 
Scriptures prior to the publication of this work : he would have been 
too glad to own the opinion of so celebrated a Philologist as is the clever 
German-Hebrew translator. Since the first publication of this work 
however, Zunz's version had been frequently consulted by the author, 
who found that, though there was a certain proximity in the German 
translation to his own, it was but a very slight one. The translation 
of the whole passage by the Jewish doctor is rather new and ingenious, 
and is therefore given here in full : — 

" He was taken away from oppression, and from judgment, and 
from His generation, — who would have conceived it, that He was 



12 



cut off from the land of life, on account of the transgression of my 
people, on account of the punishment which to them (was due) ? " * 

The author has only to add, with humble and heartfelt gratitude, 
that it had pleased Him, who chooses " the weak things of this world," 
to make this little work instrumental, not only in strengthening and 
building up the faith of many a young Hebrew believer, but also in 
destroying the stronghold of infidelity in the heart and mind of many 
an enemy of the Cross among the children of Israel. 

May the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the God and 
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, grant the same blessing to this 
Edition. Amen. 

April, 1856. 



* " Vor Druck und Strafgericht war er hingerafft, und seine Zeitgenossen, — xcer hat es 
empfunden, dass er weggetilgt ward ans de.m Lande des Lebens, wegen der Missethat nteines 
Volkes, der Strafe die diesem (gebiihrte)" 



LECTURE I. 



ISAIAH liii. 1. 

" Who hath believed our report '? 
And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?" 

A VERY praiseworthy custom prevails throughout the 
Eastern Church, which well deserves to be imitated by all 
Christian Churches. The Bishop or Priest selects a whole 
chapter as his text, and goes on expounding the same, 
verse by verse, on each succeeding Lord's day, so that in 
the course of a few weeks, the whole congregation, if they 
are regular in their attendance, obtain a complete ex- 
position of the chapter, and in a few years a commentary 
on the whole Bible. This system is called homiletical ; and 
I purpose, with divine assistance, to adopt it during the 
Lent Sabbaths ; when I intend to expound the whole 
of the chapter before us; the consideration of which is 
peculiarly suited to the solemnities which are now ob- 
served by the Christian Church. It is a chapter which 
has been properly designated by primitive Christians, 
Passional. 

Before we proceed to meditate on the chapter before 
us, it may be instructive as well as profitable, to take a 

B 



2 



LECTURE I. 



bird's-eye view of the whole book from which it is taken, 
as also of its inspired author. 

Isaiah is supposed to have been of noble extraction, 
and allied to the royal family, his father Amoz having 
been the brother of Amaziah, son of Joash, king of 
Judah.* He commenced his prophetic office in the days 
of TJzziah, and continued it during the succeeding reigns 
of Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, and probably Manasseh, 
for it was an undisputed tradition among the Jews,*)- 
which was also received by the early Christians, ;£ that he 
was sawn asunder by Manasseh, from whom he hid him- 
self in a tree. St. Paul is supposed to allude to this 
in his Epistle to the Hebrews, (11. 37) when he said, 
" They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were 
tempted, were slain with the sword ; they wandered about 
in sheep skins, and goat skins, being destitute, afflicted, 
tormented." Isaiah was contemporary with the prophets 
Jonah, Hosea, and Micah, at the period when the power 



svn dtin rrsoNi pa* '3 "tap b"i inmrm vbx viv nrwo lDrr w vb * 

Rabbi D.Kimchi, on Isaiah i. 1. — 

svn dtw nnrr -pa rraoMi wmawo wn rmno m ^b »n 

Rabbi S. Jarchi y on Isaiah i. 1. — 

NHKn i&r» m ibx ------ nt s ^ n nt£0D t 

Babylonian Talmud.— J iTHMl nVJlH 
Tract G'bachoth, fol. 49. col. 2. Sanhedrim, fol. 103. col. 2. Jeru- 
salem Talmud, Sanhedrim, fol, 28. col, 3. Shalsheleth Hakabalah, 
fol. 19. col. 1, &c. 

| ov Trpiovi tv\ivq> e7rpi<Tare. Justin Martyr, in his Dialogues with 
Trypho the Jew, page 349. 

His patientise viribus secatur Esaias. Tertullian de patientia, c. 14. 

Esaias, quern ipsi Judaei serra consectum crudelissime necaverunt. 
Lactantius, lib 4. c. 2. 

Esaias cujus facilius compagem corporis serra divisit quam fidem 
inclinavit. Ambrose on Luke, ^c. 20, page 197. See also Jerome 
and Augustine. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



3 



of Assyria began to be broken, and the Babylonian empire 
was established on its ruins. 

The book of the prophet Isaiah may properly be divided 
into five parts. 

The first part, consisting of the first 12 chapters, 
comprises a general description of the state and condition 
of the Jews, in the several periods of their history ; 
the miraculous conception of the Virgin, the birth of 
Christ, the promulgation and success of the Gospel among 
the heathen, the conversion and restoration of the Jews, 
and the coming kingdom of Christ, when His " will shall be 
done on earth as it is in heaven which is inculcated 
in the beautiful hymn which will be then sung by Judah 
and Ephraim, and with which the first part concludes. 

The second part, consisting of the next 11 chapters, 
comprises the predictions in reference to Babylon, Phi- 
listia, Moab, Damascus, Assyria, Nubia, or Ethiopia, the 
land shadowing with wings or sails,* Egypt, Ethiopia 
again, the destruction of Babylon, Dumah or Idumea, 
Arabia, Jerusalem, and Tyre. 

The third part, cnsisting of the next 12 chapters, 
comprises various prophecies in reference to the great 
calamities that should befal God's ancient people — 
their deliverance — three songs of praise which they shall 
sing after their deliverance, their conversion and 
restoration to their country, and the destruction of Anti- 
christ. 



pns) vrvybp) lptn jhno ijpbm rb )mi »jna * 

Jonathan Targum.—\ *»mB2D2 DNtDI Nlt£03 

Oval y?iQ ttXoiiov Trrepvyeg. ~LXX. 

TO 'DVi UVzh TOT DTO D^bpH »5 ! TO "TON TKKSOn TTb MS] fete fftTlp 

David Kimchi in loco. — . ^ yf^t n'Sbpm VB3D3 ftQISHD 

O Land mit Schattenreichen Segeln. 

Dr. Solomon's German Translation, 



LECTURE I. 



The fourth part, consisting of the next 4 chapters, com- 
prises the historical portion of the book. 

The fifth part, consisting of the last 27 chapters, forms 
one continuous unbroken prophecy, embracing the whole 
period from the Babylonish captivity; and bearing us 
with eagle -flight along the glowing path of prophecy, 
he transports us to the loftiest pinnacle of vision, and 
thence discloses to our view in brightest vision, all the 
future history of the Church, her conflicts and her con- 
quests, till the glorious consummation, when time shall 
be no longer. In this part the prophet dwells at consider- 
able length on the long promised and long expected 
Messiah; he describes His person, His offices, His work, 
His sufferings, His kingdom, His glory ; and piercing with 
a poet's imagination, and a prophet's glance, the long vista 
of ages, he is rapt into future times, and exults in the 
universal and eternal reign of the " Prince of Peace." 
This last part was very probably delivered at the close 
of Hezekiah's reign. It is a part which claims our highest 
regard and interest. It is a beautiful and glowing de- 
scription of occurrences in which men of these times, and 
of all subsequent times, will have as deep an interest as 
they who have lived at any former period. 

Our principal object, however, is, as I stated before, 
to contemplate on this and on the ensuing Sabbaths, the 
person, the work, and the sufferings, of our glorious Re- 
deemer, which are so graphically and clearly, so tenderly 
and impressively, set forth in the portion of Scripture, 
we have selected as our text during Lent. I would only 
entreat you most affectionately, that while you devoutly 
meditate on the sufferings of Christ, you may also believing- 
ly realize, and joyfully anticipate " the glory that shall 
follow: 1 

To have a right understanding of the proper con- 
struction of the first verse of this chapter, it will be 



ISAIAH LIII. 



5 



necessary to take into consideration the three last verses 
of the preceding chapter. In fact, the chapter should 
have commenced there, as it is now almost universally 
admitted. It appears, however, that Cardinal Hugo de 
Sancto Caro, who first divided the Bible into chapters, 
in the 13th century, did not perceive any connection 
between the three last verses of the 52nd chapter and 
the beginning of this. 

After describing, in his own majestic and beautiful style, 
the future glory and salvation of Israel, even " the salva- 
tion of our God," in store for the captive daughter of 
Zion, as it is recorded in Is. 52. 10 : " The Lord hath 
made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations ; 
and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of 
our God the prophet proceeds to introduce the person 
by whom so great a salvation would be effected ; not 
by reason of their righteousness, but of sovereign grace, 
yea, by the very person whom they rejected, even the 
Hock of their salvation, which they rejected, verily the 
Redeemer, the Lord of hosts, the Holy One of Israel, 
who for their sakes, " took upon Him the form of a 
servant," but whom they blasphemed. The prophets 
generally introduce this servant when they are speaking 
of Israel's future glory, to guard them from self-conceit. 
Read with me Ezek. 36. 22 — 28; " Therefore say unto 
the house of Israel, Thus saith the Lord God ; I do not 
this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy 
name's sake ; which ye have profaned among the heathen, 
whither ye went. And I will sanctify my great name, 
which was profaned among the heathen, which ye have 
profaned in the midst of them ; and the heathen then 
shall know that I am the Lord, saith the Lord God, when 
I shall be sanctified in you before their eyes. For I will 
take you from among the heathen, and gather you out 
of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. 



6 



LECTURE I. 



Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall 
be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, 
will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, 
and a new spirit will I put within you : and I will take 
away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give 
you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within 
you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall 
keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell 
in the land that I gave unto your fathers, and ye shall 
be my people, and I will be your God." Again, Ezek. 
37. 21 — 28: "And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord 
God, behold, I will take away the children of Israel 
from among the heathen, whither they be gone ; and 
will gather them on every side, and bring them into their 
own land. And I will make them one nation in the land 
upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king 
to them all : and they shall be no more two nations, 
neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more 
at all. Neither shall they defile themselves any more 
with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with 
any of their transgressions : but I will save them out of 
all their dwelling places, wherein they have sinned, and 
will cleanse them : so shall they be my people, and I will 
be their God. And David my servant shall be king over 
them ; and they shall have one shepherd : they shall 
also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, 
and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I 
have given unto Jacob my servant ; wherein your fathers 
have dwelt ; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and 
their children, and their children^ children for ever: 
and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. 
Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them ; 
it shall be an everlasting covenant with them : and I will 
place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary 
in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also 



ISAIAH LIII. 



7 



shall be with them : yea I will be their God, and they 
shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I 
the Lord do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be 
in the midst of them for evermore. ,, 

" Behold my servant ! He shall instruct (or make 
wise) ;* He shall be exalted, and extolled ; and be very 
high." Isa. 52. 13. Having called the special attention 
of Israel to the Lord's servant, (run " Behold " being 
here used emphatically for that very purpose,) the prophet 
proceeds at once to describe His future very high exal- 
tation, intimating that He was one with God, as plainly 
stated in Is. 50. 10., in the following parallel lines : 

" Who is among you that feareth the Lord, 
That obeyeth the voice of His servant ?" 

and that He only "took upon him the form of a servant,"" 
that He might be able to become " obedient unto death, 
even the death of the cross thus plainly foretelling 
that Messiah would be God and man — though a servant, 
yet the Lord — though debased, still exalted — a victim, but 
Himself the priest — subject, but only for a short time, 
as the glory would follow, and He would become Prince — 
involved in death, and yet victor over death — poor, but 
also rich, and making many rich at the same time — 
" a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, 11 exposed 
to infirmities, unknown, and in a state of destitution 
and humiliation, but also a King, a Conqueror, glorious, 
and altogether lovely. All these apparently contradictory 
qualities had their fulfilment in the person of Jesus of 
Nazareth. There is an inspired comment on this passage 
in the New Testament, as you will find in St. Paul's 
Epistle to the Philippians (2. 5 — 11.): "Let this mind 
be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the 



* totiP being the Hiphil form. 



8 



LECTURE I. 



form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with 
God : but made Himself of no reputation, and took upon 
Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness 
of men. And being found in fashion as a man, He 
humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even 
the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly 
exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above 
every name. That at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow ; of things in heaven and things on earth, 
and things under the earth ; and that every tongue should 
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God 
the Father." 

The prophet proceeds in the 14th verse of the 52nd chap- 
ter: "As many hissed because of Thee, saying, His 
appearance is so disfigured, more than that of man, and 
so is His form disfigured more than the sons of men.""* 
This verse contains a concise but precise description of 
the apostacy of the Jewish nation. Alas ! no sooner 
did Jesus announce Himself as the servant of the Lord, 
as coming to finish the work which His Father gave 
Him to do, than He was hissed at and treated most 
contemptuously by those whom He was sent to save. Listen 
to their vile and scornful remarks. " Can any good 
thing come out of Nazareth!" "Shall Christ come out 
of Galilee ?" " Is not this man the carpenter's son V 
" This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them." 
" We will not have this man to reign over us." Yea, 
they preferred a murderer to Him. " They cried out 
all at once, saying, Away with this man, and release unto 
us Barabbas." And we read in St. Mark 15. 29—32 : 
" And they that passed by railed on Him, wagging their 
heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, 



* The verbs p-^ and xycr® are synonymous, both conveying the idea 
of contempt. The word saying must be supplied. 



ISAIAH LIIT. 



9 



and buildest it in three days, save thyself, and come down 
from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking, 
said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others, 
Himself He cannot save. Let Christ, the king of Israel, 
descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. 
And they that were crucified with Him reviled Him." 

In the 15 th verse, the prophet gives a brief but com- 
prehensive description of the admission of the Gentiles 
into the fold of Christ, or the engrafting of the wild 
olive tree into the place of the natural branches, which 
were broken off because of unbelief.* " So shall He 
sprinkle many nations ; the kings shall shut their mouths 
at Him, for that which had not been told them shall 
they see ; and that which they had not heard shall they 
consider." That this passage refers to the conversion of 
the Gentiles, may be seen more plainly by comparing 
it with Eom. 15. 8, 9: "Now I say that Jesus Christ 
was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God, 
to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. And 
that the Gentiles might glorify God for His merey ; as 
it is written, for this cause I will confess to Thee among 
the Gentiles, and sing unto Thy name." A little further 
(verse 21) we meet with the very passage under consider- 
ation : " But as it is w r ritten, to whom He was not spoken 
of, they shall see ; and they that have not heard, shall 
understand,^ Thus the predictions of this prophet have 
been fulfilled to the very letter, and are in the course of 
fulfilment every day. The greatest mass of the Jewish 
nation to this very day, with the Oracles of God in their 
hands, trample under foot the precious blood of Jesus 
Christ, and literally hiss at the very mention of the name 
Jesus, the Saviour of the world ; whilst Gentiles glorify, 



* Rom. II. 19, 20. 

c 



JO 



LECTURE I. 



adore and worship Him, as is most just and due. A 
wonderful and mysterious change ! 

" The Gentiles gladly hailed His word, 
The Jews refused to own their Lord — 
And since that sad though distant hour, 
They still reject Immanuel's power : 
Without a king— without a home — 
From clime to clime these wanderers roam ; 
Though persecuted, dwell alone — 
A marvel to the world !" 

The mystery of the incarnation and atonement, the 
sufferings and death of the Redeemer, His exaltation 
and His glory, are events which have no parallel in the 
history of the world. They stand by themselves, and 
will do so for ever, from generation to generation. They 
are fitted in their nature to excite the most profound 
adoration and wonder, and to induce kings and nobles 
to lay their hands on their mouths^ in token of profound 
veneration. This prophecy alone is amply sufficient to 
baffle the unbelieving Jew and infidel Gentile, for it is 
an undeniable fact, that kings and princes have manifested 
the profoundest veneration for the despised and crucified 
Nazarene ; and history informs us, that since the time 
of Constantine the Great, many wise and mighty monarchs 
have professed the greatest admiration and respect for 
the character and laws of Jesus. 

There seems to be an obvious allusion in the expression 
" He shall sprinkle many nations," to the typical sprinkling, 
appointed under the Old Testament dispensation, and 
particularly to those performed by the high priest, who 
was commanded to sprinkle the blood of the victim offered 
in sacrifice, for himself and the people, seven times before 
the Lord, as you will find in Leviticus 4. 6 : " And the 
priest shall dip his finger in the blood, and sprinkle of 



ISAIAH LTII. 



LI 



the blood seven times before the Lord, before the veil of 
the sanctuary or it has reference to the purification o f 
the leper mentioned in Lev. 14. 7. " And he shall sprinkle 
upon him that is to be cleansed from the leprosy seven 
times, and shall pronounce him clean, and shall let the 
living bird loose into the open field." In reference to these 
Mosaic institutions which were " the shadows of good 
things to come," the evangelical prophet instructs the 
J ewish nation, that the servant of the Lord, even J esus 
Christ, who came to minister, the great High Priest of 
our profession, should sprinkle many nations with His holy 
doctrine, that He should sprinkle them with water in the 
sacred ordinance of baptism, administered by His servants 
in obedience to His appointment, that they " should not 
henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died 
for them." Compare with this Rom. 6. 3, 4 : " Know ye 
not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ, 
were baptized into His death ? Therefore we are buried 
with Him by baptism into death ; that like as Christ was 
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even 
so we also should walk in newness of life." Again, the 
prophet instructs the Jewish people, that the servant of 
the Lord should sprinkle the Gentiles with His precious 
blood, emphatically denominated "the blood of sprinkling," 
which being effectually applied by the Holy Ghost, "cleans- 
eth from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit," and "purgeth 
the conscience from dead works, to serve the living Cod." 
(Heb. 9. 14.) You will also observe from the expression, 
" many nations," that the prediction imports that the 
b< Lord's servant " was to communicate the inestimable 
benefits resulting from His passion to people of all nations, 
and that His blood should be effectually applied to them 
for the purposes for which it was shed. Let us, therefore, 
be solicitous, dearly beloved, to share in the promised 
blessing, and earnestly entreat of our Lord Jesus Christ, 



12 



LECTURE I. 



so to sprinkle our hearts, that all the faculties of our souls 
may be thoroughly sanctified, that we may not only retain, 
but adorn our profession in all things. 

We shall now proceed with the consideration of our 
text for this morning, and before doing so, I would humbly 
crave your indulgence, as regards the view which I am 
about to give of this chapter ; for I am very well aware 
that when a young minister ventures to differ in his 
interpretation of Scripture from that which has been 
offered by popular commentators and celebrated preachers, 
many look upon such an interpretation with suspicion, and 
many more are inclined to treat it with a sneer, and very 
often attribute such a step to rashness, or the conceit of 
inexperience. But let me assure you, dear brethren, 
that I have devoted to the investigation of this chapter 
much study, and much earnest prayer, that the Lord, 
in His infinite mercies, may graciously guide me into all 
truth, and keep me from darkening "counsel by words 
without knowledge." 

Having said thus much, I venture to trust that you, on 
your part, will bear with me, and favour me with a candid 
and indulgent audience, should my interpretation clash 
with your preconceived notions, and strike you, at first 
sight, as strange, and perhaps altogether unwarrantable. 
Experience must have taught you, as well as it has taught 
me, that opinions are not necessarily sound, because they 
are old, nor things undeniably true, because we may have 
believed them from infancy. In fact, I feel it a duty 
incumbent upon me, who am, through divine providence, 
appointed your minister in God's holy mysteries, to point 
out to you what I think to be the truth. 

I am of opinion that this chapter is to be, at some 
future time, a penitential hymn, which the Jewish people 
shall use with contrition of heart, soon after their national 
conversion to the truth as it is in J esus ; mourning, as it 



ISAIAH LIT I. 



13 



were, over their long obstinate unbelief. All the verses 
in that part of the chapter are in the past tense, which 
led Bishop Lowth to observe, that " this chapter describes 
the circumstances of our Saviour's sufferings so exactly, 
that it seems rather a history of His passion than a pro- 
phecy." Thus also I am led to think, that the Holy Ghost 
dictated what Israel shall say, when, in God's good time, 
they shall be gathered into the fold of Christ. The Com- 
forter seems to have dictated several triumphant Hymns 
for the house of Jacob, which they shall celebrate after 
their returning glory, as the 12th, 25th, and 26th chapters 
of Isaiah; as also the 92nd, 96th, 97th, lz4th, and 
149th Psalms. But Israel is also to mourn over their 
manifold transgressions, and especially over their rejection 
of the Messiah for so long a period. Turn with me for a 
moment to the book of the prophet Zechariah, (12. 6 — 11) 
and you will there read, " In that day will I make the 
governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, 
and like a torch of fire in a sheaf ; and they shall devour 
all the people round about, on the right hand, and on the 
left ; and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again, in her own 
place, even in Jerusalem. The Lord also shall save the 
tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David 
and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not 
magnify themselves against Judah. In that day shall 
the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem ; and he 
that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David ; 
and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of 
the Lord before them. And it shall come to pass in that 
day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come 
against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of 
David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit 
of grace and of supplications : and they shall look upon 
me whom they have pierced, and they shall mouen for 



14 



LECTURE I. 



ME, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in 
bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his 
first born. In that day there shall be a great mourning 
in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the 
valley of Megiddon.' 1 And this chapter, I think, will be 
one of the mournful Hymns, which the house of David 
and the inhabitants of Jerusalem shall celebrate, when 
they shall be enabled to appreciate the great goodness and 
mercy of God, in His stupendous scheme of redemption ; 
and also, on their part, see their own perverseness, in 
standing opposed for so many ages to God's divine Provi- 
dence and will, and impiously blaspheming the name of 
the only begotten of Jehovah, Jesus Christ — their own 
looked for Messiah — the " King of the Jews," whilst 
Gentiles were all the time coming to His light, whom God 
did visit " to take out of them a people for His name.' 1 
They shall then break out with this plaintive Hymn, 
which is musical in its sadness, and betrays the agony of 
a broken heart and contrite spirit.* This view does not 
deprive this chapter of its prophetic import, nor does it 
render it unprofitable for instruction. On the contrary, 
the spirit .of prophecy, even the testimony of Jesus, 
is more manifest in this Hymn than in any part of Scrip- 
ture ; and the instruction inculcated in it surpasses all 
knowledge and all wisdom besides ; "and it is profitable 
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction 



* The author was very much gratified to find, long after the delivery 
of his Lent Lectures, that his view on this chapter is thus hinted at by 
the learned critic, Bishop Horsley, in his justly celebrated work, 
" Biblical Criticism :" — " The speaker in this 53rd chapter personates 
the repenting Jews in the latter ages of the world, coming over to the 
faith in the crucified Redeemer. The whole is their penitent confession ; 
it is adapted to the person of such penitents, and not equally well 
adapted to any other person." 



ISAIAH LTII. 



15 



in righteousness ; that the man of God may be perfect, 
throughly furnished unto all good works in the amplest 
magnitude of signification. 

Strange to say, though modern Jews assert that this 
chapter does not refer to the Messiah,* they are still obliged 
to confess once in the year at least, even on the " Day of 
Atonement," that it does refer to Him. There is a 
passage in the prayers for that solemn day, which proves, 
beyond all contradiction, that the ancient compilers of 
that prayer, understood the Son of Amoz to speak in 
this portion of his book of the despised Nazarene, and 
the 5th verse is already used in the form of a melancholy 
Hymn, which runs thus : — 

" Messiah, our Righteousness has departed from us, 
Horror has seized us, and we have none to justify us. 
With our wickedness and misdeeds He was burdened, 
And He was wounded for our transgressions ; 
Bearing on the shoulder our sins ; 
In order to find an atonement for our iniquities. 
May we be healed by His ivound.^f 

In the same strain, dearly beloved, does every converted 
sinner, who has spent his early years in enmity with God 
and His Christ, break out into singing, as soon as the 
light of divine truth shines into the inward parts of his 
naturally deceitful and desperately wicked heart. 

The pious author of the following affecting Hymn, was 
evidently animated with the same godly sorrow for 

* See Appendix A., 

rtfroara xb kd-o 
See Appendix B. 



LECTURE I. 



Christ's sufferings with which the house of Jacob shall 
be, when Israel's backsliding and Judah's treachery shall 
be healed : — 

" Alas ! and did my Saviour bleed ? 

And did my Sov'reign die ? 
Would He devote that sacred head 

For such a worm as I ? 

" Was it for sins that I had done, 

He groaned upon the tree ? 
Amazing pity ! grace unknown ! 

And love beyond degree ! 

" Well might the sun in darkness hide, 

And shut his glories in, 
When God, the mighty Maker, died, 

For man, the creature's sin. 

" So be my boastings silenc'd too, 

And humbled be my pride ; 
When faith holds up before my view 

The Saviour crucified. 

" Tho' neither tears nor zeal can pay 

The debt of love I owe ; 
Yet, Lord, I give myself away ; 

'Tis all that I can do." 

In the same manner shall Israel mourn, when looking 
back on the sad catastrophe which happened to them, in 
consequence of obstinate unbelief, and the salvation that 
came to the Gentiles, through their fall. The Hymn 
begins with a melancholy exclamation of sadness and 
amazement, when musing over the wonderful change. 

" Who hath believed our report ? 

And to whom was the arm of the Lord manifested ?" 



Ours were the Oracles of God which taught the doctrine 
of salvation ; to us pertained the adoption, and the glory, 
and the covenants [new as well as old] ; and the giving 
of the law, and the service of God, and the promises ; 
ours were the fathers, and of whom as concerning the 
flesh Christ came ; in short, we were the children of 
the kingdom ; but alas ! we believed not, and were for a. 
long time cast out into outer darkness, because of un- 
belief ; and who are the faithful ? — -Though there can be 
but one opinion in a Christian's mind respecting the 
application of this verse, viz., that it refers to the Jewish 
unbelief, for it has been thus interpreted by cur Lord 
and St. Paul (John 12. 38, Rom. 10. 16.) : yet it implies 
something e'se, namely the conversion of the heathen 
nations ; " For Moses saith, I will provoke them to 
jealousy, by them that are no people, and by a foolish 
nation I will anger you." Hence the inquiry, — 
M Who hath believed our report f ' 

Verily Gentiles. The Lord, in consequence of our 
ancestors' infidelity, took " out of them a people for His 
name." (Act. 15. 14), Because of our hissing at, and 
despising, our own Messiah, He sprinkled many nations. 

" And to whom was the arm of the Lord manifested T 
Verily to Gentiles, 

It will not be out of place to observe here, that Isaiah 
uses the figure, ** Arm of the Lord " for the Redeemer y 
the Angel of God's presence. Allow me to invite your 
attention for a moment to a few passages of Scripture, 
illustrative of this opinion. Read with me the 10th verse 
of the 52nd chapter : " The Lord hath made bare His 
holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends 
of the earth shall see the salvation of our God. 1 ' Now 
compare it with the 16th verse of the 59th chapter; 
"And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that 
there was no intercessor : therefore His arm brought 



IS LECTURE L 

salvation unto Him : and His righteousness, it sustained 
Him." Then observe that, in verses 19 and 20, the 
Redeemer is presented to our view : " So shall they fear 
the name of the Lord from the West, and His glory from 
the rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in 
like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard 
against him. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, and 
unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith 
the Lord." The same figure is used in the 5th verse of 
the 63rd chapter : " And I looked and there was none 
to help ; and I wondered that there was none to uphold : 
therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me : and 
my fury it upheld me." And in the 9th verse, the " Angel 
of His presence " is presented to us. " In all their afflic- 
tion He was afflicted, and the Angel of His presence 
saved them, in His love and in His pity He redeemed 
them ; and He bare them, and carried them all the 
days of old." 

The idea seems to be, " Who are they that loved the 
Redeemer, and were therefore loved by the Father and 
the Son, the latter of whom manifested Himself to them, 
in accordance with His promise V Compare John 14. 21 
with John 17. 6, and 1 John 3. 5 : " He that hath my 
commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth 
me ; and he that loveth me, shall be loved of my Father, 
and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him." 
" I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou 
gavest me out of the world ; thine they were, and thou 
gavest them me ; and they have kept thy word." " And 
ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins ; 
and in Him is no sin." 

" And to whom was the arm of the Lord manifested !" 
Yea, verily to Gentiles. As the contemplation of Israel's 
unbelief filled Paul's heart with " great heaviness and 
continual sorrow," so is it a source of heartfelt grief and 



ISAIAH LTII. 



sorrow to every true converted Israelite even now. When- 
ever he sees an assembly of Gentiles worshipping J ehovah 
Jesus in spirit and in truth, he inwardly exclaims with 
his brother Saul of Tarsus : " I say the truth in Christ, 
I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the 
Holy Ghost, That I have great heaviness and continual 
sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were 
accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen accord- 
ing to the flesh:' (Rom. 9. 1—8). 

In conclusion, dearly beloved, I would earnestly exhort 
you to stand fast in your high and glorious calling. The 
natural branches were broken off that you, who were of 
a wild olive tree, might be grafted in. I entreat you, 
therefore, in the words of the great Apostle to the Gen- 
tiles, " Be not high minded, but fear. For if God spared 
not the natural branches, take heed lest He spare not 
you." (Rom. 11. 20, 21). They filled up the measure of 
their sins by crucifying the Lord of glory ; but listen 
again to the same heaven -taught Paul, who writes thus 
concerning professors of the religion of Jesus, who fall 
back into sin : " They crucify to themselves the Son of 
God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." (Heb. 6. 6). 
Christ's interest in His people is so great, His intense 
anxiety for their salvation is so penetrating, that wilful 
sin on their part is, as it were, a fresh crucifixion of Him 
in His most affectionate feelings ; and His honour is so 
identified with their consistency, that when they are in- 
consistent, He is put to open shame. I say then, "Watch 
ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong," 
" that God may count you worthy of His calling." Or 
else the repentant Israelite may turn upon you, and ad- 
dress you in the beautiful, but searching lines of Bishop 
Heber : — 

" And who art thou that mournest me, replied the ruined grey, 
And fearst not rather that thyself may prove a cast- away ? 



20 



LECTURE I. 



I am a dried and abject branch, my place is given to thee; 
But woe to every barren graft of that wild olive tree. 

Our day of grace is sunk in night, our time of mercy spent, 
For heavy was my children's crime, and strong their punishment. 
Yet gaze not idly on our fall, — but, sinner, warned be, 
Who spared not His chosen seed, may send His wrath on thee, 

Our day of grace is sunk in night, thy noon is in its prime, 
Oh ! turn and seek thy Saviour's face in this accepted time I 
So, Gentile, may Jerusalem a lesson prove to thee,, 
And in the new Jerusalem thy home for ever be»" 



ISAIAH LIII. 



23 



LECTURE II 



ISAIAH liii. 2, 3. 

" For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, 
And as a root out of a dry ground ; 

He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, 

There is no beauty that we should desire Him. 

He is despised and rejected of men ; 

A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief : 

And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him ; 

He was despised, and we esteemed Him not." 

WHEN we are led to examine closely the counsels of the 
Almighty, and compare them with the plans of fallen, 
erring, and fallible man, we discover a like difference pre- 
vailing, as in the works of nature when compared with 
those of art. The works of art may at first sight appear 
the most finished and beautiful, but when the eye is 
enabled to penetrate into their contexture, the nicest work- 
manship is detected to be rough and blemished. Not so 
with the works of nature. They gain by the most critical 
examination ; and those which at first sight appear to be 
defective or rude, the more closely they are analyzed, dis- 
cover the more exact construction and consummate beauty. 
In like manner the systems of human speculation and 



/ 



22 



LECTURE IT. 



worldly policy, although at first they may seem plausible, 
and even profound, soon betray in their progress the nar- 
rowness of their finite understanding ; while the decrees 
and counsels of Jehovah, which appeared to furnish ob- 
jections, either against the goodness or wisdom of heaven, 
have, upon more extensive view of their consequences, 
and upon closer study of the word of life, very often 
afforded the most striking proofs of both. These, and 
such like reflections, must suggest themselves to our 
thoughts, the more we study and meditate upon the chap- 
ter before us. 

God manifested in the flesh was to the Jews a stumbling 
block, and to the Greeks foolishness. Their confined ideas 
of religion and philosophy could not comprehend it. If 
a superior Being was to interpose for the restoration of a 
degenerate world, they argued that He would certainly 
appear in celestial splendour and majesty. But the 
thoughts of God are not as the thoughts of men. His 
divine wisdom saw it to be fit that the Saviour of the 
world should in all things be made like unto those whom 
He came to seek and to save. O, had but the Jews and 
the Greeks sought instruction from the sacred volume, 
they might have found out that the Redeemer was first 
to suffer and then to enter into glory ; and that it was 
necessary, that the very same nature which had offended, 
should be offered by the Son of God a token in expiation 
to the Father for human guilt, in accordance with the 
covenant into which the Father and the Son entered from 
the foundation of the world. 

The text for our consideration this morning describes so 
comprehensively, and at the same time so minutely, the low 
estate of the Messiah, as to leave us no room for question- 
ing His divine mission after He has made His appearance. 
Indeed, marks and characters of the Messiah were re- 
peatedly recorded in the prophetic writings ; so that it 



ISAIAH LI II. 



23 



is impossible to unfold the Sacred Volume without meeting 
with some of them. They are, moreover, recorded in 
style free from symbolical veil, and clothed in simple 
language, in order that he may run that reads them. 

Moreover, not only did the Holy Spirit predict Messiah's 
sufferings and abasements, but also that His great humilia- 
tion wouldbemacle the ground for rejecting Him, and on which 
the unanimous testimony of the holy men of old, of the 
goodly fellowship of the prophets, and the glorious company 
of the apostles, who wrote as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost, should be discredited. The prophet describes in 
our text not only the low condition of Jesus, but also 
the arguments which the unbelieving Jews founded on it, 
and which arguments they shall one day confess, with 
weeping, mourning, and contrition of heart, that they 
used ignorantly. 

We could not get a better description of the mind of an 
unbelieving Jew than that given in our text. We find 
in it the whole train of his arguments and reasons for 
rejecting Christ. I can easily imagine a Jewish congrega- 
tion, who were taught from the Scriptures the prophecies 
relating only to Christ's glory, and never thinking of 
those referring to His sufferings, I say I can easily imagine 
such a congregation, assigning the following as a reason 
for their rejecting Jesus as their Messiah : — 

"For He grew up before Him like a sucker, 
And like a root out of a dry ground : 

He had neither form nor splendour, that we should regard Him ; 

Nor appearance that we should desire Him. 

He was despicable and the meanest of men, 

A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, 

And as one who would hide his face from us ; 

He was despicable,* and we regarded Him not." 

Literal Translation. 

* The same epithet rra: which was used at the beginning of the 
verse, is also used at the close, with the addition of a negative pre- 



24 



LECTURE II. 



Blind unbelief reasons thus, Jesus did not appear in 
the form which we had anticipated. True it is, that 
Messiah is designated by the son of Amoz, both J esse's 
Branch and Jesse's Boot ; in other words, David's Son 
and David's Lord ; for we read both those attributes in 
Is. 11. 1, 10: "And there shall come forth a rod out 
of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his 
roots." "And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse, 
which shall stand for an ensign of the people ; to it shall 
the Gentiles seek : and his rest shall be glorious. 1 '-)- We 
can well understand the following prerogative given to 
our Messiah : " And one of the elders saith unto me, 
Weep not: behold the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the 
Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to 
loose the seven seals thereof." (Rev. 5. But we cannot 
allow that it was the despised Nazarene who could claim 
the following epithets : " I Jesus have sent mine angel to 
testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the 
root and the offspring of David, and the bright and 
morning star." (Rev. 22. 16.) True it is that Jesus was 
born of the tribe of Judah, and of the family of Jesse,§ 
but could He be called THE BRANCH I He was but 
a sucker, or shoot sprouting up from the root of a tree 
that has been cut down to the ground. True it is that 
Jesus could claim relationship to Jesse's offspring ; but 
could He pretend to be the " Root of Jesse V He grew 
up " like a root out of a dry ground." A more insignifi- 

position, which the Hebrew idiom requires, in order to give greater 
energy to any declaration of this kind. 

f The 11th chapter of Isaiah is almost universally applied to Messiah 
by Jewish as well as by Christian Commentators. Most of the former 
follow the paraphrase of Jonathan ben Uziel, who gives the following 
version of the first verse of that chapter : — 

I'Hrv rrai -:no njtidoi man tdxs 
X See Gen. 49. 9. § See Appendix C. 



ISAIAH Mil. 



25 



cant and unpromising object cannot be imagined than a 
solitary shrub in an arid soil, and under a sultry sky. 
The figure strikingly sets forth the reduced and obscure 
state of the family of David at the time of our Lord's 
appearance, of which the unbelieving Jew takes advan- 
tage, and argues thus : — 

" There were noble and wealthy families in the tribe of 
Judah during the second temple, yet of none of those 
was Jesus born, but of one of the poorest ; His supposed 
father being a carpenter, His mother a poor virgin of 
Nazareth." Having said thus much with reference to the 
family of Jesus, the unbelieving Israelite would proceed to 
scan His own personal claims : — 

' ; As regards the things touching our king Messiah, we 
read in the book of Psalms, " Thou art fairer than the 
children of men : grace is poured into thy lips ; therefore 
God hath blessed thee for ever. Gird thy sword upon 
thy thigh, O most mighty, with thy glory and thy majesty. 
And in thy majesty ride prosperously because of truth 
and meekness and righteousness ; and thy right hand 
shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp 
in the heart of the king's enemies ; whereby the people 
fall under thee. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever : 
the sceptre of thy kingdom is a right sceptre. Thou 
lovest righteousness, and hatest wickedness : therefore 
God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness 
above thy fellows." (Ps. 45. 2 — 7).* But as for Jesus, 
we know not whence He is ; " He has neither form nor 
splendour, that we should regard Him." He had no robes 
of royalty, no diadem adorning His brow, no splendid 



* This Psalm is generally supposed by Jewish interpreters to refer 
to the Messiah. Jonathan in his Targuni has the following for the 
second verse : — 

vtdxah « "p-ia p Vhqq yy\D2 n^i: rm tit™ nhim mo annuo tdm -ncvo> 

E 



26 



LECTURE IT. 



retinue, no gorgeous array ; He could not be the king, 
touching whom the sons of Korah sung so sweetly. 

"The prophet Haggai, when predicting the coming of 
Messiah, tells us, " For thus saith the Lord of hosts ; 
Yet once, it is a little while, and I will shake the heavens, 
and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land ; and I will 
shake all nations, and the desire of all nations shall come : 
and I will fill this house with glory, saith the Lord of 
hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the 
Lord of hosts. The glory of this latter house shall be 
greater than of the former, saith the Lord of hosts ; and 
in this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts.'' 
(Hag. 2. 6 — 9). Malachi also assures us, in the name of 
J ehovah, " Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall 
prepare the way before me : and the Lord, whom ye seek, 
shall suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the 
covenant, wdioni ye delight in: behold. He shall come, saith 
the Lord of hosts." (Mai. 3. 1). But He had no such " ap- 
pearance that we should desire Him.'" " His visage was 
so marred, more than that of any man.'" 

" Again, as to our king Messiah, the wisest of men de- 
picted Him thus : " My beloved is white and ruddy, the 
chiefest among ten thousand. His head is as the most 
find gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven, His 
eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, 
washed with milk, and fitly set. His cheeks are as a bed 
of spices, as sweet flow T ers ; his lips like lilies, dropping 
sweet smelling myrrh. His hands are as gold rings set 
with the beryl ; his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with 
sapphires. His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon 
sockets of fine gold : his countenance is as Lebanon, 
excellent as the cedars. His mouth is most sweet ; yea, 
he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is 
my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem." (Can. 5. 10 — 16). 
The Evangelical Prophet speaks of our Messiah as follows : 



ISAIAH LTII. 



27 



" For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given : and 
the government shall be upon His shoulder : and His name 
shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, 
The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.* Of the in- 
crease of His government and peace there shall be no 
end, upon the throne of David, and upon His kingdom, 
to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with 
justice, from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the 
Lord of hosts will perform this." (Is. 9. 6, 7). Again, 
" And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him, the 
spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel 
and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the 
Lord; and shall make Him of quick understanding in 
the fear of the Lord : and He shall not judge after the 
sight of His ey es, neither reprove after the hearing of His 
ears ; but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, 
and reprove w T ith equity for the meek of the earth : 
and He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, 
and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.- 
And righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and 
faithfulness the girdle of His reins. The wolf also shall 
dwell w T ith the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with 
the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling 
together ; and a little child shall lead them. And the 
cow and the bear shall feed ; their young ones shall lie 
down together ; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, 
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' 
den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy 
mountain : for the earth shall be full of the knowledge 
of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." (Is. LI. 2 — 9). 
But as for Jesus, "'He w T as despicable and the meanest 
of men," " a friend of publicans and sinners." 



nrrcfn nibs ^6' rawi «mun * 

Jonathan' 's Targum. 



LECTURE II. 



" The circumstances which were to accompany the coining 
of our Messiah have never yet taken place. The history 
of the Christian Church, from the birth of Christ, is a 
narrative of war and bloodshed. Where is the fulfilment 
of the promise in connection with the corning of Messiah ? 
" They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain : 
for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, 
as the waters cover the sea. 1 ' (Is. 11. 9). "In His 
days shall the righteous flourish ; and abundance of peace 
so long as the moon endureth. He shall have dominion 
also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of 
the earth. His name shall endure for ever : His name 
shall he continued as long as the sun : and men shall be 
blessed in Him : all nations shall call Him blessed." 
(Ps. 72. 7, 8, 17).* The heathen are still idolaters, and 
professing Christians hateful and hating one another. 

" Moreover, Jesus could not have been righteous; Je- 
hovah would have kept Him from trouble ; He would have 
given His angels charge concerning Him, and in their 
hands they would bear Him up, lest at any time He dash 
His foot against a stone ; but the crucified one " was a 
man of sorrows, and acquainted w 7 ith grief !" He was 
such an one, who could not be touched with the 
feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points tempted 
like as we are. 

" Furthermore, He did not take the government upon 
His shoulders, as the looked-for Messiah was expected 
to do, according to the declarations of Isaiah and Daniel : 
" For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the 
government shall be upon His shoulder: and His name shall 

* The word which is rendered in the English version " shall be 
continued" signifies SON", and was considered, by the ancient Hebrews, 
as a proper name of the Messiah. — We read in Talmud, Tract Sanhe- 
drim, fol. 98, col. 2, thus respecting the Messiah : — 

^orc ttjoto tfrwb ran) »rp Vo© vy® py nan w »n m ■- doc rre 



ISATAH LIII. 



29 



be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The ever- 
lasting Father, The Prince of Peace." (Is. 9. 6). "I saw 
in the night-visions, and behold, one like the Son of man 
came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient 
of days, and they brought Him near before Him. And 
there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, 
that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him : 
His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not 
pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be 
destroyed." (Dan. 7. 13, 14) Nor did He assert His preroga- 
tive as sovereign, restore the kingdom to Israel, and crush 
the foreigners who had usurped the dominion, expel the 
Eoman Governor and advance the Jews to their predicted 
national pre-eminence ; He was " as one who would hide 
His face from us."* He would not make Himself known, 
and whenever He performed a miracle, He charged either 
those who were healed, or His disciples to tell no man ; 
and when the people actually made up their mind to 
make Him king by force, He hid Himself from them, 
as it is recorded in the Gospel history : " When Jesus 
therefore perceived that they would come and take Him 
by force, to make Him a king, He departed again into a 
mountain Himself alone." (John 6. 15). 

Our text for this morning, therefore, as I observed at 
the commencement of this discourse, contains the prin- 
cipal arguments which the unbelieving Jew advances as 
reasons for rejecting Jesus as the true Messiah. In- 
fluenced by the prince of this world, he quotes only part 

* Many Hebrew philologists prefer this translation, but none, as far 
as my knowledge extends, have put upon it the interpretation, given 
above, which seems to me the most natural. Jonathan, who in his 
Targuni interprets the whole chapter of Messiah, paraphrases this 
clause thus : — 

Nan any::© Npxra mm Norn 



30 



LECTURE IT, 



of the Scriptures of truth,* leaving out of sight all the 
prophecies relating to Messiah's sufferings, but dwelling 
very minutely on those relating to His glory. Knowing 
as I do, the present state of the Jew — his prejudices, 
his arguments, his sophistry, and his character — I can 
therefore, confidently affirm, that we could not possibly 
get a more faithful picture of the mind of a modern Israel- 
ite in reference to the Messiah than that drawn in our text: 
and in this sense we may safely apply the words of St. Paul, 
" that blindness in part is happened to Israel." (See Rom. 
11. 25). 

We might have well concluded, if we had met with 
our text in a work, to which we could not put a positive 
date, that it was written after the advent and sufferings 
and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, as also after mature 
missionary experience amongst the Jews, who made use 
of the above mentioned arguments. But finding our 
text in the book of the Prophet Isaiah, a book which is 
acknowledged by Jews as well as by Christians, to 
have been penned above seven hundred years before the 
Christian era, we fearlessly challenge the infidelity of all, 
be they Jews or Gentiles, to gainsay the irrefragable 
testimony which Christianity derives from this chapter. 
Yes, dearly beloved, Christianity is no delusion. We 
have not followed cunningly devised fables ; Christi- 
anity is not a theory which has been palmed upon the 
world for truth, when in reality, it was false ; it is the 
eternal truth of the ever blessed God, who liveth and 
reigneth world without end. Jesus, the chief corner stone 
of the Christian Church, did not indeed, at His first 

* When Satan tempted our blessed Lord in the wilderness, he 
made use of the same expedient, when he proposed to the Holy Jesus 
to cast Himself down from the pinnacle of the temple. See Matt. 4. 
5, 6, and compare with Psalm 91. 11, 12. 



ISAIAH LIU. 



31 



appearance, come heralded by any pomp of worldly 
circumstances, but nevertheless accredited by the voice 
of heaven, which announced seven hundred years before, 
that such would be His first appearance ; and moreover, 
that His lowly and humble deportment would wholly disap- 
point the expectation of " His own," and that they would 
not receive Him. And thus even an unenlightened Peter, 
who savoured " not the things that be of God, but those 
that be of men/' dared rebuke our blessed Lord, when He 
began to teach personally His disciples the things which 
were to be accomplished in Him, by saying, "Be it far 
from Thee, Lord ; this shall not be unto Thee. 1 ' (Matt. 
16. 22, 23). The Jews, alas! did not give heed to the 
" sure word of prophecy," they did not " bind up the 
testimony," and thus came to pass the words of the 
evangelical prophet, " Sanctify the Lord of hosts Him- 
self ; and let Him be your fear, and let Him be your 
dread. And He shall be for a sanctuary ; but for a stone 
of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses 
of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of 
Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and 
fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.'' (Is. 
8. 13—15).* 

But blessed be the name of the Lord, " His gifts and 
LI is callings are without repentance f He also foretold 
that Israel shall mourn for rejecting their Messiah, and 
confess their error with weeping and lamentation ; when 
the Sun of Righteousness shall burst upon them, they 
will see that they rejected their King ignorantly ; they 
knew not what they did. (Luke 23. 34). Those very 

* Jonathan's paraphrase in his Targum of the 14th verse deserves 
attention : — 

bpna toVi to ptVi pmeb pa HHD^ID vn pbapn Nb-Dwi 
Compare it with chapter 9. 5 — 7, and the Gospel according to 
St. John 1. 1,2, 3, 10, 11. 



32 



LECTURE II. 



circumstances which furnished them with objections 
against the glorious truth, will be found to be the 
strongest arguments in favour of the same, inasmuch as 
they were precisely such as had been foretold by their 
holy Prophets ; as we shall see from the verses succeed- 
ing our text. 

I trust that our text for this morning has received all 
the force and sufficiency of illustration. I may, however, 
add that from this text, Justin Martyr, Clemens Alex- 
andrinus, Tertullian, and others of the ancient fathers, 
concluded that our Saviour's person was deformed ; 
while St. Jerome and others inferred from the 2nd verse 
of the 45th Psalm that Jesus was a person of extraor- 
dinary comeliness. We need not waste our time in 
speculating who were likely to be right, and who were 
likely to be wrong; but the above contradictory opin- 
ions of the early fathers of the Christian Church convince 
us, that the making or setting up the image, or the 
picture of Jesus, was no part of religious worship in 
the early ages of Christianity ; otherwise some other 
positive tradition concerning His person would have been 
bequeathed to us.* 

It remains only for us now to apply the text to our- 
selves, for let us never forget, that all these things hap- 
pened unto them for ensamples, [literally types] ; and 
they are written for our admonition. (1 Cor. 10. 11). 
The Jewish nation, my brethren, is a typical nation, and 
its history is full of symbolic occurrences. The enmity 
which the Jews have so long evinced against Jesus is by 
no means peculiar to Jewish human nature. The human 
nature of Gentiles manifested, and still manifests the 
same hateful disposition towards that Holy One. Yea, 
even many, very many baptized Gentiles. The behaviour 



* See Appendix D. 



ISAIAH LI1I. 



33 



of the Jews towards Jesus serves only as an instance, 
what men would do to their God, even those who profess 
to love Him, if they only had Him in their power. The 
great Apostle of the Gentiles teaches us, that " the carnal 
and unrenewed mind (be it of Jew or Gentile) is enmity 
against God." How often do we meet with Christians 
expatiating on the atrocious wickedness of the Jews in 
crucifying the Lord of Glory ; implying, in fact, that 
if He had appeared amongst them, He would have met 
with a more favourable reception. There was a horrid 
custom once in the Christian Church, which rendered the 
Jews especial objects of hatred and insult during Lent, 
and more particularly during the ceremonies of Easter 
week. The Bishop used to mount the pulpit of the 
Cathedral, and address the people to the following effect : 
" You have among you, my brethren, the descendants of 
the impious wretches who crucified the Lord Jesus Christ, 
whose passion we are soon to commemorate. Shew your- 
selves animated with the spirit of your ancestors ; arm 
yourselves with stones, assail the Jews with them, and 
thus as far as in you lies, revenge the sufferings of that 
Saviour who redeemed you with His own blood." Alas ! 
this custom still prevails in some countries.* You may 
be sure, however, that if Christ humbled HIMSELF once 
more, and appeared visibly amongst us, He would be 
treated in the same way as He was by the Jews ; yea, 
44 crucified afresh, and put to an open shame." Lie would 
have again to listen to the dogmas of insolent reasoning ; 
He would be once more disgusted with the fiend-like 
sneers of reprobate men, and the polished cavils of 
fashionable contempt. And is not Christ now with us ? 
Yea, verily He is ; He comes to us continually in the 
preaching of the Gospel, though not visibly. His last 



* See Appendix E. 



F 



34 



LECTURE II. 



words were, " Lo ! I am with you alway, even to the end 
of the world." But do we admire His beauty? Do we 
adore His goodness? Alas ! no. How often do we 
prove by our conduct the melancholy reverse ! We 
practically join too often the unbelieving Jews, in consider- 
ing the Lord of glory despicable and unestimable, as one 
on whom it is scarcely worth our while to bestow a thought. 
Instead of seeking our happiness in Him, and devoting 
all the energies, which He has graciously given us, to His 
service, alas ! there is no possession ever so despicable 
but we prefer it before Him, nor any lust, be it ever so 
base, but we choose the indulgence of it rather than His 
favour. 

Dear brethren, think of this melancholy truth ; let it 
sink deeply into your hearts, and give you no rest till you 
have found rest in Him, who is the "Prince of Peace,'' 
and then shall your enmity be slain, and your aversion 
turned into reverence and love. 

Whilst the unbelieving Jews are advancing the low 
estate of Christ, when He tabernacled amongst us, as 
an argument for rejecting Him, let us glory in the fact 
that " we have not an high priest which cannot be touched 
with the feelings of our infirmities ; but was in all points 
tempted like as we are, yet without sin ;" and, moreover, 
that it was for our sakes that He consented to be man. 
It was not an humiliation inflicted upon Him, as the un- 
believing Jew supposes, but " He humbled Himself" " He 
took upon Him our nature." The comforts afforded to 
the true disciple of Christ from meditation on His suffer- 
ings are transcendantly great. The Christian may rest 
assured, that He who consented to be betrayed and die 
for his sin, but is now exalted at the right hand of the 
Majesty on High, will from His celestial throne keep a 
watchful eye over those who follow Him in the " regenera- 
tion."' He will afford them support and protection, when 



ISAIAH LIII. 



35 



He sees them contending with the storm of adversity, 
labouring to follow His steps through the steep and 
difficult paths of virtue, exposed on every side to arrows 
aimed against them by the powers of darkness. 

In conclusion, dearly beloved, I would press on you the 
exhortation of the great Apostle of the Gentiles, " Let 
this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." 
" He humbled Himself," not only to reconcile us to our 
offended God and Father, but also to set us a pattern. 
We behold in Him a pattern of unspeakable disinterested- 
ness, a pattern of indescribable humility. Never forget 
that all this was for our benefit. Now let us pause for a 
moment and ask ourselves, What return do we make? 
Awful, most awful is the neglect, the contempt, the cold- 
ness, the formality which we manifest towards that Holy 
pattern. May the Lord, in His infinite mercies, enable 
each and every one of us to pray without ceasing for the 
mind which was in Christ Jesus ! Amen. 



LECTURE III. 



ISAIAH liii. 4, 5, 6. 

" Surely He hath borne our griefs, 

And carried our sorrows ; 

Yet we did esteem Him stricken, 

Smitten of God, and afflicted. 

But He was wounded for our transgressions, 

He was bruised for our iniquities ; 

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him ; 

And with His stripes we are healed. 

All we like sheep have gone astray ; 

We have turned every one to his own way ; 

And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." 

AS soon as the celestial rays of the Sun of Righteousness 
penetrate into the corrupt heart of sinful man — though 
originally, as described by the wisest and most experienced 
of men, " full of evil and madness, 1 ' (Ecc. 9. 3) — the re- 
generating influence, which emanates from the Holy Spirit, 
becomes remarkably manifest in such a man. — Such a man 
is able to appreciate the inspired declaration of the 
Psalmist, " The law of the Lord is perfect, converting 
the soul : the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise 
the simple. The statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing 
the heart : the commandment of the Lord is pure, en- 
lightening the eyes,' 1 (Ps. 19. 7, 8). The word of the Lord 
is indeed to such a man a lamp unto his feet, and a light 
unto his path. Such an individual, even from utter igno- 
rance, proceeds under the guidance of the Comforter, in 



ISAIAH LIIT. 



37 



the career of unbounded knowledge ; and from the 
grovelling propensities of his mortal nature, he rises to 
the contemplation, the fellowship, the enjoyment of the 
living God, and feels spiritual graces and immortal hopes 
implanted in his heart by God's divine will, which he 
regards as pledges of his adoption, and he considers himself 
as bound " to walk worthy of the vocation, wherewith he 
is called." Such a man is not influenced by the instiga- 
tion of the wicked one, to found his creed on a part of 
God's word only, but studies diligently, and examines 
prayerfully the whole from beginning to end ; — he does 
not think of, and take only isolated passages of Scripture 
as his rule of life and conduct, but his comprehensive 
views are reflected from the whole mirror of Revelation, 
and not from the words which marl's wisdom teacheth, 
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual 
things with spiritual. Such an one is wise, like " the 
Scribe, who is instructed unto the Kingdom of Heaven, 
who bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and 
old." In short, " he is a new creature : old things are 
passed away ; behold all things are become new." (2 Cor. 
5. 17.) 

The unbelieving Jew, who has formerly " known Messiah 
after the flesh" only, namely, in a worldly view, expecting 
Him to be a conquering hero at His first appearing, in- 
stead of the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins 
of the world, is led, as soon as heavenly light is vouchsafed 
to his soul, to determine " not to know anything save 
Jesus Christ and Him crucified." How fervently, there- 
fore, should every one of us pray for a new heart, and a 
right spirit ! Their attainment is of the highest im- 
portance. — They are sublime in their nature, perceptible 
in their operations, and evident in their effects. They are 
sublime in their nature, being a translation from darkness 
to light, and from death to life. Their operations are 



38 



LECTURE III. 



also perceptible ; they breathe in prayer, are felt in our 
fears and hopes, sorrows and joys, and insinuate themselves 
into every power and passion of the soul. They are also 
evident in their effects, known in the closet, perceived in 
the family, and exemplified in the world ; for if any man 
be in Christ, he becomes a living epistle, read and Toiown 
of all men. 

On Sunday last, we considered the reasons of the 
obstinate unbelief of Israel after the flesh, which are 
concisely but distinctly contained in the second and third 
verses of the chapter before us — the sum and substance 
of which is, that they set their heart, attention, and 
thoughts only on part of the Scripture of truth — dwelling 
minutely on the prophecies relating to the Redeemer's 
kingdom and majesty, and losing sight of those referring 
to his suffering and humiliation. Observing, therefore, 
such a great contrast between the SON OF MAN coming 
in the clouds of heaven, on whose vesture and on whose 
thigh the name which is above every name is to be inscribed, 
namely, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS, 
and the meek and lowly Jesus, the man of sorrows and 
acquainted with grief, who humbled HIMSELF, they 
hastily concluded that the crucified Nazarene was not the 
person predicted by Moses, the Psalmist, and the Prophets, 
and therefore despised and rejected Him; but alas! in 
doing so, they also blasphemed the Man Christ Jesus, who 
is God over all, blessed for ever, — and have thus been left 
so many centuries without an atonement for their sins, and 
and have justly incurred the wrath of God to the utter- 
most, which they shall, at some future time, confess with 
godly contrition, in the language of Daniel : — " We have 
sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done 
wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy 
precepts and from thy judgments: neither have we hear- 
kened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy 



ISAIAH LIII. 



39 



name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all 
the people of the land. 0 Lord, righteousness belongeth 
unto thee, but unto us confusion of faces, as at this day; 
to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, 
and unto all Israel, that are near, and that are far o% 
through all the countries whither thou hast driven them, 
because of their trespass that they have trespassed against 
thee. O Lord, to us belongeth confusion of face, to our 
kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have 
sinned against thee. To the Lord our God belong mercies 
and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him; 
neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to 
walk in His laws, which He set before us by His servants the 
prophets. Yea, all Israel have transgressed thy law, even 
by departing, that they might not obey thy voice; there- 
fore the curse is poured upon us, and the oath that is 
written in the law of Moses the servant of God, because we 
have sinned against Him. And He hath confirmed His 
words, which He spake against us, and against our judges 
that judged us, by bringing upon us a great evil: for under 
the whole heaven hath not been done as hath been done 
upon Jerusalem. As it is written in the law of Moses, all 
this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer 
before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our 
iniquities, and understand thy truth. Therefore hath the 
Lord watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for 
the Lord our God is righteous in all his works which He 
doeth: for we obeyed not His voice." (Dan. 9. 5 — 14). 

We now proceed to consider " the Israel of God,'''' namely 
the Jewish nation, as believers in the only begotten Son of 
Jehovah,* not as under the present dispensation, when only 
one of a city and two of a family are the Israel of God, but 



* The expression "Israel of God" (Gal. 6. 16.) has almost univer- 
sally been paraphrased by Christian commentators " Gentile believers" 



40 



LECTURE III. 



during that dispensation when "all Israel shall be saved,"— 
when they shall be turned to the Lord, and the veil shall 
be taken away from their heart, (2 Cor. 3. 16.) when the 
Lord, according to His gracious promise, will take them 
from among the heathen, and gather them out of all 
countries, and will bring them to their own land, and 
sprinkle clean water upon them, and give them a new 
heart, and put a new spirit within them, and cause them 
to walk in His statutes, and keep His judgments, and do 
them," (Ezek. 36. 22—28,) ; when they shall discover, like 
the two disciples, who met the Lord on their way to the 
village Emmaus, that they were " fools, and slow of heart 
to believe ALL that the prophets have spoken!" and they 
will know that Christ ought first to have suffered those 
things, and then to enter His glory. Then will they begin 
u at Moses and ALL the prophets, 1,1 and expound unto 
themselves (for " the spirit of grace and supplication," 
shall have been poured upon them) "in ALL the scriptures 
the things concerning'' Christ. (Luke 24. 13 — 27.) 



which, no doubt, gave rise to the idea that wherever Israel is mentioned 
in the Old Testament it must mean believing Gentiles. I must confess 
that after a rigorous examination, I am led to reject the common inter- 
pretation of Gal. 6. 16. Our blessed Lord and His holy apostles never 
used the terms Israel and Gentiles except in their Old Testament sense. 
See Matt. 10. 5, 6. Acts 3. 12; 4. 8, 27; 9. 15 ; 13. 16, 17, 42. Eom. 
9. 3—5, 30, 31 ; 10. 1, 21 ; 11. 13, 25. 2 Cor. 3. 13. Gal. 2. 14. Eph. 
3. 1. Now it is contrary to all sound criticism to attach to a word in 
one solitary passage a sense which it never has in any other place. It is 
my humble opinion that the "Israel of God" means the faithful followers 
of the Lord Jesus Christ from among the literal Israel. We know that 
the church of Galatia was composed of Jews as well as of Gentiles, and 
some of the former taught justification by the works of the law, whom 
the apostle considered as " fallen from grace," and others stood fast in 
the doctrines of the Gospel, and taught justification through the 
redemption of Christ Jesus, whom the apostle designated " the Israel 
of God." Compare Rom. 9. 7, 8. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



4) 



May the Lord, in His infinite mercies, pour upon each 
and every one of us His " Spirit of grace and supplication," 
and impress our minds, whilst we are meditating on His 
sufferings, and the atonement which He made by those 
sufferings, with the essential importance of taking the 
WHOLE Scripture as our rule of faith, and looking unto 
Jesus as our All in All : that we may take heed to ourselves, 
not to treat slightly His doctrines, by neglecting His pre- 
cepts and sacred ordinances — one of which, we shall, with 
the divine blessing, administer this day — thus virtually 
trampling under foot the precious blood of Jesus Christ, 
crucifying unto themselves the Son of God afresh, and put- 
ting Him to an open shame, which must inevitably bring 
upon us, as upon the Jews of old, the wrath of God to the 
uttermost. Father of all mercies, save us from such a 
catastrophe ! 

We proceed then at once to the consideration of the 
three following verses of the hymn before us, which the 
Israel of God shall celebrate : — 

" Surely they were our griefs which He hare, 
And our sorrows with which He burdened Himself; 
Yet we regarded Him plagued, 
Smitten by God, and afflicted. 

But He having been pierced on account of our transgression. 

Having been bruised on account of our iniquities, 

Our entire chastisement was put upon Him, 

And by reason of His contusions we were healed. 

All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; 

Each of us turned to his own way; 

But the Lord caused to meet in Him 

The iniquity of us all." 

Literal Translation, 

Thus will repentant Israel acknowledge their foolishness 
and ignorance, saying, as it were, The very circumstances 
which gave offence to us, and over which we stumbled and 
fell, namely His sufferings and humiliation, were in reality 

G 



42 



LECTURE III. 



the most powerful arguments for His divine mission — m 
accordance with Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalmist — 
and should have excited in us feelings of heartfelt gratitude 
towards Him, for the riches of His boundless mercy towards 
us ! How impiously did we judge of the character of the 
Holy Sufferer ! How were our eyes holden, that we should 
not know Him I We were not aware, that unless Christ 
died, the just for the unjust, all of us would have been lost 
to all eternity by reason of our sins, for in Adam we all 
died. We were in great error respecting all this; our eyes 
were dazzled with the halo, which was to surround our 
nation under our Messiah's reign, and thus we lost sight of 
our awful state without an atonement for our sins. We 
thought in our mad frenzy, that Jesus of Nazareth was 
justly punished for His own sins, when our forefathers 
raised their infuriated shouts, all at once, " saying, Crucify 
Him, Crucify Him V We thought God had forsaken Him. 
It never occurred to our darkened understanding, that the 
Holy Jesus suffered so much because of our sins, even when 
Caiaphas, who was high priest in the same year that Jesus 
was crucified, declared, not of himself, but by the spirit of 
prophecy, that it was expedient for us that one man should 
die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not; 
we never imagined that it was the testimony of Jesus; it 
never came into our minds, that if He did not die we 
should all have perished in our sins. Oh, with what godly 
sorrow, and heartfelt contrition will Israel exclaim, as soon 
as the gospel of Christ shall become the power of God unto 
their soul's salvation, 

" Surely they were our griefs which He bare, 

And our sorrows, with which He burdened Himself."* 



* The ancient Hebrew writers, who had no Christian controversy in 
yiew, interpret this passage in the same way. The following extra- 



ISAIAH LIII, 



43 



How readily will they be able to shew the things concern- 
ing Christ's sufferings, as " noted in the scripture of truth." 
The believing Israelite, or the Israelite of God, is well able 
to understand and appreciate the first prophecy concerning 
-our Eedeemer. Old truths come to his knowledge with 
extraordinary force. He admires G-od's unfailing mercy 
from the beginning of the world. He sees that no sooner 
had sin entered into the world, by our first parents' trans- 
gression, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all 
men, for that all have sinned ; and thus became the enemies 
of God, and the allies of Satan ; — for as soon as man trans- 
gressed, his nature became evil, and therefore was at peace 
with the evil one — -I say, no sooner did Satan succeed in 
introducing sin into the world, and thus made the heart of 
men deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, and 
boasted that with undisputed supremacy he would ever 
after hold man in vassalage, than the very criminals were 
favoured with the cheering announcement, that enmity 
would be put between the victor and the vanquished, and 
that the former would not enjoy his victory undisputed, 
but that there were yet undeveloped arrangements which 
would bring about ultimate mastery in favour of the 
latter, through the Messiah, or " the God of peace who 
is to bruise Satan under our feet,' 1 (Rom. 16. 20) ; and 
the following prophecy, though a brief and solitary verse, 
opens to his mind the grand scheme of redemption, planned 
since the foundation of the world. " And I will put enmi- 
ty between thee and the woman, and between thy seed 
and her seed ; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt 



ordinary passage occurs in an ancient Hebrew work, entitled MJlp^DB 
P'sikta : — 

nn» mm b'a rniran nn-£o a*nm tosh »D3 nnn it erob ytfr® ni pn k-qilo 
mtm Daw picb "tot? Vnon o « ib b'a d^n tydv nnx »n VifcwVi rwanb 
:nr™2 nnw to bV? tf } m Kin 13^n DH a™ 



44 



Lecture hi. 



bruise his heel." (Gen. 3. 15). The believing Israelite 
discovers that the fact of Jesus being "a man of sorrows 
and acquainted with grief," despised by His own, denied, 
forsaken, and betrayed by friends, buffeted by temptation, 
convulsed by agony, lacerated by stripes, pierced by nails, 
crowned with thorns, is a fulfilment of the prediction that 
His heel should be bruised, for to all this infliction the 
old serpent, even the devil, instigated and prompted his 
seed. But why had the holy Jesus to submit to such 
indignities, but because of the gnilt which our first parent 
incurred ? so that all have sinned, and were consequently 
banished from the presence of our Creator, and abandoned 
to slavery to the enemy of our souls. Jesus by His 
sufferings, therefore, liquidated the vast debt we owed 
to God, by which He effected our redemption from the 
Satanic bondage. There was not a pang by which the 
Mediator was torn, and not a grief by which His soul 
was disquieted, which helped not on the achievement of 
human deliverance. Well then may Israel say : — 

" Surely they were our griefs which He bare, 
And our sorrows with which He burdened Himself." 

Let us now refer to another passage in the Mosaic- 
records, which indicates that unless some person took 
the curse of the law from us, all and each of us would 
have been eternally accursed. Read the following verse, 
" Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of this 
law to do them. And all the people shall say, Amen.' 1 
(Deut. 27. 26).* Compare now that passage with another 



* Though the word a ^ 1S no longer to be found in the original 
of the Hebrew text, and therefore printed in italics, it is still pre- 
served by the Jewish commentators, even by those most hostile to 
Christianity, and who spent their life, I may add, in attempting to 
controvert the arguments of the first heralds of salvation. The 



ISAIAH LIII. 



45 



part of God's word, written by one who was " a pattern " 
to his nation which should hereafter believe in Christ to 
life everlasting. Hear the teaching of the Israelite of 
God, Saul of Tarsus, " For as many as are of the works 
of the law are under the curse : for it is written, Cursed 
is every one that continueth not in all things which are 
written in the book of the law to do them. But that 
no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is 
evident ; for, The just shall live by faith. And the law 
is not of faith ; but, The man that doeth them shall 
live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse 



following are Rabbi Solomon Jarchi's words on the passage in ques- 
tion : — 

tnVo n-nnn b^ na pta imp 1 vb ton 
Yet the Rev. Dr. "Wall, Regius Professor of Hebrew in the Univer- 
sity of Dublin, in his sermon (preached in the chapel of Trinity 
College, Dublin, on May 25, 1845), entitled " A prophecy respecting 
the divinity of our Lord, and His atonement for the sins of mankind, 
recovered from the corruption with which its meaning was perverted 
by the Jews of the second century," draws his principal illustration 
from the passage under consideration. The learned Professor observes, 
"For this purpose I select the 26th verse of the 27th chapter of 
Deuteronomy : " Cursed be he that confirmeth not all the words of 
this law to do them. And all the people shall say. Amen." In this 
verse, as exhibited in our authorized Bible, you may perceive that 
the word all is printed in italics, to intimate that the original of it is 

now no longer to be found in the Hebrew text There can be 

no doubt, then, but that the Hebrew term alluded to, on which the 
force of the Apostle's argument connected with the above passage 
mainly rests, was dropped from the sacred text by its Jewish tran- 
scribers, for the very purpose of defeating that argument ; as a word on 
which so much depended, in the disputes carried on from the earliest 
ages of Christianity, could not have been left out through mere in- 
advertence." How very strange that one of the greatest Jewish con- 
troversialists should put in the word, in the 12th century, on which so 
much depended ! It is to be regretted that the Regius Hebrew Pro- 
fessor did not pay more attention to Hebrew writers. 



16 



LECTURE III. 



of the law, being ma do a curse for us : for it is written, 
Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree." (Gal. 3, 
10 — 13). The same Hebrew of the Hebrews tells us in 
another place, " Christ was once offered to bear the sins 
of many." 

St. Peter, when exhorting his Hebrew Christian brethren 
to follow Christ's steps, speaks after this manner : — 
" Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth : 
who, when He was reviled, reviled not again ; when He 
suffered, He threatened not ; but committed Himself to 
Him that judgeth righteously : who His own self bare 
our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead 
to sin, should live unto righteousness : by whose stripes 
ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray ; but 
are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your 
souls." (1 Peter 2. 22—25). 

No less explicit is the royal Psalmist on the grand theme 
of Christ's atonement for our sins. Turn to the 40th Psalm . 
*' Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust, 
and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to 
lies. Many, O Lord my God, are Thy wonderful works 
which Thou hast done, and Thy thoughts which are to 
us-ward : they cannot be reckoned up in order unto Thee : 
if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than 
can be numbered. Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not 
desire ; mine ears hast Thou opened : burnt-offering and 
sin-offering hast Thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I 
come : in the volume of the book it is written of me, I 
delight to do Thy will, O my God : yea, Thy law is 
within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the 
great congregation : lo, I have not refrained my lips, 
O Lord, Thou knowest. I have not hid Thy righteous- 
ness within my heart ; I have declared Thy faithfulness 
and Thy salvation: I have not concealed Thy loving- 
kindness and Thy truth from the great congregation,'"' 



ISAIAH LIU. 



47 



(verse 4 — 10). Upon which St. Paul thus beautifully com- 
ments in his Epistle to the Hebrews, who were, no doubt, 
conversant with the Old Testament Scripture: — "For 
the law having a shadow of good things to come, and 
not the very image of the things, can never with those 
sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make 
the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not 
have ceased to be offered ! because that the worshippers 
once purged should have had no more conscience of sins. 
But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance again 
made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the 
blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Where- 
fore when He cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and 
offering Thou wouldest not, but a body hast Thou prepared 
me : in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin Thou hast had 
no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume 
of the book it is written of me,) to do Thy will, O God. 
Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt- 
offerings and offering for sin Thou wouldest not, neither 
hadst pleasure therein ; which are offered by the law ; 
then said He, Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God. He 
taketh away the first, that He may establish the second. 
By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering 
of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." (Heb. 10. 1 — 10). 

The Prophet Daniel, who was so exact in his dates, 
fixes even the year of Christ's suffering, and adds, "but 
not for Himself." " And after threescore and two weeks 
shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself : and the 
people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the 
city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be 
with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are 
determined." (Dan. 9. 26). 

Zechariah, whilst describing the extent of the Re- 
deemer's kingdom, does not lose sight of His sufferings. 
Listen to his words, " Rejoice greatly, 0 daughter of 



LECTURE lit. 



Zion; shout, 0 daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy king 
cometh unto thee : He is just, and having salvation ; lowly, 
and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. 
And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim, and the 
horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow shall be cut off : 
and He shall speak peace unto the heathen : and His 
dominion shall be from sea even to sea, and from the river 
even to the ends of the earth. As for Thee also, by the 
blood of Thy covenant I have sent forth Thy prisoners 
out of the pit wherein is no water. V) (Zech. 9. 9 — 11). 
How sweet, therefore, should the name of Jesus sound 
in a believer's ear ! especially when he is able to confess, 
though with a contrite and sad heart — 

" Surely they were our griefs which He bare, 
And our sorrows with which He burdened Himself." 

It is indeed musical in its sadness, and soothing in its 
sorrowfulness. It is a joyful sound ! 

" A sov'reign balm for ev'ry wound, 
A cordial for our fears." 

But though such was the leading theme of all inspired 
penmen, though Moses describes in very plain terms that 
it is blood alone which makes atonement for the soul, and 
constantly directs our attention by the rites and sacrifices 
of his economy to the just who died for the unjust — ■ 
though the sweet Psalmist of Israel depicted so minutely 
the sufferings of the Messiah upwards of a thousand 
years before He actually appeared and suffered, in such 
touching terms as the following : " But I am a worm, and 
no man ; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. 
All they that see me laugh me to scorn : they shoot out 
the lip, they shake the head, saying. He trusted on the 
Lord that He would deliver him : let Him deliver him, 
seeing He delighted in him. My strength is dried up 



ISAIAH LIII. 



49 



like a potsherd ; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws ; 
and thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For 
dogs have compassed me : the assembly of the wicked 
have inclosed me ; they pierced my hands and my feet." 
(Ps. 22. 6 — 8, 15, 16). Yea, even the reviling words which 
Christ's enemies would make use of concerning Him, were 
minutely predicted, such as the following : "All that hate 
me whisper together against me: against me do they 
devise my hurt. An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast 
unto Him : and now that He lieth He shall rise up no 
more. Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, 
which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against 
me." (Ps. 41. 7 — 9). Though Isaiah in his peculiar and 
brilliant style endeavours to rivet our attention, not only 
on the reigning Messiah, but also on the self-same suffering 
one, as we read in the 50th chapter of his prophecies, 
" The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not 
rebellious, neither turned away back : I gave my back 
to the smiters, and my cheeks to them that plucked off 
the hair : I hid not my face from shame and spitting 
(verses 5, 6), and also in the whole of the chapter before 
us : —I say, though such was the theme of prophecy 
throughout all generations since the fall to the Advent 
of Christ, and the above passages should have been suffi- 
cient to attest that the suffering Jesus was the true 
Messiah ; yet will Israel, with all those sacred oracles in 
their hands, have to confess with shame and confusion 
of face, 

" Yet, w regarded Hiin plagued, 
Smitten by God, and afflicted." 

What powerful arguments might the book of Psalms 
have furnished them with of the divinity of the mission of 
Jesus, even after He was crucified ! How should the 
Scribes and Priests have recollected that they have mi- 
ll 



50 



LECTURE III. 



wittingly made use of the very words which David, in the 
spirit, put into their mouths. Read the Gospel record. 
" And they that passed by reviled Him, wagging their 
heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and 
buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the 
Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also 
the chief priests mocking Him, with the scribes and 
elders, said, He saved others ; Himself He cannot save. 
If He be the king of Israel, let Him now come down 
from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in 
God ; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him : 
for He said, I am the Son of God." (Matt. 27. 39—43). 
But our blessed Lord, willing as it were to convince them 
that their impious procedure had long since been pre- 
dicted, called to their mind the very Psalm in which it 
was foretold that such would be their conduct ; we read, 
therefore, in the 46th verse of the same chapter, " And 
about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, 
saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani I that is to say, My 
God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me V How 
amazingly intense must have been their infatuation ! 
How great their disregard of their own Scriptures ! 
After all the mighty work too, that had been done, which 
made even the centurion tremble and greatly affrighted, 
and forced the confession from him, " Truly this was 
the Son of God.' 1 The chief priest and Pharisees, never- 
theless, came together unto Pilate, " Saying, Sir, we 
remember that that deceiver said, while He was yet alive, 
After three days I will rise again. Command therefore 
that the sepulchre be made sure until the third day, lest 
His disciples come by night, and steal Him away, and 
say unto the people, He is risen from the dead ; so the 
last error shall be worse than the first. " (Matt. 27. 
63, 64). With what heartfelt contrition, therefore, 
ought the repentant Israelites to exclaim : — 



ISAIAH LIII. 



5] 



€ * Surely they were our griefs, which He bore, 
And our sorrows with which He burdened Himself ; 
Yet we regarded Him plagued, 
Smitten by God, and afflicted." 

There is a great deal of genuine remorse in this exclama- 
tion, more than is apparent at first sight. The converted 
Israelite seems bewildered when contemplating the me- 
lancholy and unaccountable ignorance, which had for so 
long a period reigned in his mind. I can almost fancy I 
hear him say, " Behold I called myself a Jew, and rested 
in the law, and made my boast of God, and professed to 
know His will, and approved the things that were more 
excellent, being instructed out of the law ; and was con- 
fident, that I myself was a guide of the blind, and a light 
of them which were in darkness, an instructor of the 
foolish, a teacher of babes, which had the form of know- 
ledge and of the truth in the law; and yet I myself 
became a cast-away. I refused to believe in Christ be- 
cause of His humiliation and sufferings, and concluded 
that He was subjected to great and severe punishment by 
God for His sins. I regarded Him as an object of divine 
disapprobation ; or, in the words of the hymn : — 

4 Yet we regarded Him plagued, 
Smitten by God and afflicted.' " 

Yes ! what Jew, who professes to rest in the law, and 
makes his boast of God, would think for a single moment 
to give utterance to a supposition that the bullock which 
was killed before the door of the tabernacle, and whose 
blood was sprinkled upon the altar round about, because 
of the priest's transgression, (Lev. 4.) — I say, what Jew 
would think even of supposing that the animal thus killed 
was visited with the punishment because of its own sins ? 
Did time permit us, we might go through in this way all 
the sacrifices ordered in the book of Leviticus, and appeal 



52 



LECTURE III. 



to the common sense of any unbelieving Jewish brother 
who may now listen to me, in the words of a brother J ew, 
w Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou 
not thyself?"* If any one asked the leper for whom one 
bird was killed — to typify Christ's death for sin — and 
another dipped in the blood of the slain one and sent loose 
into the open field — to typify the risen Saviour for our 
justification, who entered by His own blood into the holy 
place — I say, if any one asked the healed leper respecting 
those birds, would he not make use almost of the words 
of the Prophet, and say, 

" Surely they were my griefs which they bare, 
And my sorrows with which they were burdened." 

What an appropriate expression for converted unbelievers, 
especially Jewish unbelievers, who boasted of " being in- 
structed out of the law — who refused to pay allegiance 
to Jesus, the Lamb of God, because He humbled Himself 
unto death ! With what pathos should they acknowledge, 
when able to survey the book of Leviticus with an en- 
lightened eye, that looks for Messiah and the Gospel in 
that extraordinary volume, which prefigures and symboli- 
cally represents the grand scheme of redemption — 

" Surely they were our griefs which He bare, 
And our sorrows with which He burdened Himself ; 
Yet we regarded Him plagued, 
Smitten by God and afflicted." 

How heart-rending ! How base was our ingratitude for 
all the mercies that was shown towards us ! How intense 
was our ignorance ! How thick our darkness ! How pro- 
fane our blasphemy against that Holy Jesus, who graci- 



* Rom. 2. 21. A good many unconverted Jews attended Glas- 
nevin Church during the delivery of these Lectures. 



ISAIAH LI1I. 



53 



ously condescended to bear our griefs, and to be laden 
with our sorrows ; 

" Yet we regarded Him plagued, 
Smitten by God, and afflicted." 

Holy Father, attend to the prayer of Thy well-beloved 
Son, Jesus Christ, " Forgive them, for they know not 
what they do." 

The second verse of our text, I conceive to be the pro- 
phet's own inspired paraphrase of the first verse. Any 
one having read the prophecies of the son of Amoz care- 
fully and attentively, could not help being struck with 
the peculiarity of his sacred style. He generally first 
delivers Jehovah's message in beautiful, attractive, and 
captivating figurative language, bearing us with eagle- 
flight along with him; and when he has riveted our 
attention on his glorious and unrivalled sacred hyperbole, 
he begins to interpret, as it were, his own parable. So 
that any one reading the book of the Prophet Isaiah with 
a sound critic's eye, stands in need of no commentary ; 
for he may easily discover both text and comment in that 
glorious volume. Read, for instance, on your return 
home, the 5th chapter of that book. He begins with a 
song touching God's vineyard ; and in the 7th verse, he 
tells us : — 

" For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel ; 
And the men of Judah His pleasant plant," &c. 

Head also the 55th chapter of the same book, which 
contains Jehovah's most gracious invitation for every one 
that thirsteth to come to the water of life, and so on ; 
then in the 3rd verse an explanation is given of the water 
and bread, in the plainest terms : — 

" Incline your ear, and come unto me : 
Hear, and your soul shall live," &c. 



54 LECTURE III. 

I have selected the above merely as specimens ; the 
intelligent and prayerful reader will find that almost all 
the prophecies of the son of Amoz are dictated in similar 
style. 

Our text for this morning is another instance of this 
beautiful peculiarity. The prophet, in the first verse, 
puts into the mouth of repentant Israel the melancholy 
but faithful confession, that they deserved to be put to 
continual griefs, but the Holy Jesus with amazing pity, 
did bear them instead — they deserved to be oppressed and 
crushed by reason of their richly merited sorrows, but 
the Son of God, through His boundless love and con- 
descension, burdened Himself with them instead. Then 
in the second verse of our text Isaiah puts again into 
the mouths of "the Israel of God' 1 the interpretation 
of the words "griefs'' and "sorrows," which is the follow- 
ing :— 

" But He having been pierced on account of our transgression, 
Having been bruised on account of our iniquities, 
Our entire chastisement was put upon Him, 
And by reason of His contusions we are healed." 

The ancient translators and paraphrasts of the Scriptures 
adopted Isaiah's interpretation. Both the oldest trans- 
lations have instead of " our griefs," the words, "our 
sins."* 



* The following admirable paraphrase is given by Jonathan in his 
Targum : — 

w N3nin to pa 

The first clause was evidently adopted by the LXX, which render it:— 

Ovtoq Tag dfidpTiag rjfxojv <pspei. 
The profoundly learned Archbishop Magee, in his work on the " Atone- 
ment," evidently followed too implicitly the opinions of Whitby, Light- 
foot, &c, for if he had consulted the most ancient and celebrated 



ISAIAH LIII. 



55 



St. Matthew evidently quotes the first verse of our text, 
when relating the mighty works which Jesus performed at 
Capernaum, by casting out the evil spirits from those who 
were possessed with devils, and healing those who were 
sick, " That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by 
Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, 
and bare our sicknesses." (Matt. 8. 17). And this was 
in perfect harmony with Scriptural doctrines. — Be it re- 
collected, that the maladies under which men groan, are 
the consequences of sin ; and His removing of bodily dis- 
orders was emblematical of the spiritual diseases, which 
also He came to heal ; and our Saviour manifested to the 
Jews His desire to teach them that there is palpable cause 
and effect as regards sin and sorrow, or sin and sickness, 
"We are instructed to the same effect in the Gospel narra- 
tives. When Jesus "came into His own city, behold 
they brought to Him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a 
bed ; and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of 
the palsy ; Son, be of good cheer ; thy sins be forgiven 
thee." (Matt. 9. 2). The scribes could not comprehend 
it, and mentally accused the great Physician of soul and 
body of blasphemy, " And J esus knowing their thoughts 
said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts ? For 
whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee ; or 

Hebrew writer just quoted, he would not, in all probability, have come 
so hastily to the conclusion, " that the Jews themselves considered this 
passage of Isaiah as referring to bodily diseases.'" He would also have 
paused before he pronounced " the word d^apn'ac, which is now found 
in the Greek version of the 4th verse, to be a corruption which has 
crept into the later copies of the Greek." (See Vol. I. pp. 414, 415.) 
The passages from the Talmud, and other Hebrew writers, which the 
above mentioned Christian divines quote, seem indeed to refer to 
bodily diseases. But Jonathan is by far the greater authority in every 
respect. It is almost incredible to what amount scriptural interpreta- 
tion has suffered, in consequence of the sad deficiency of Hebrew 
learning amongst Christian divines. 



56 



LECTURE III. 



to say, Arise, and walk." (v. 4, 5). Consider also the 
interesting history of the impotent man, who had an 
infirmity for thirty-eight years, who was lying near the 
pool of Bethesda waiting for the moving of the water ; 
but whom J esus cured with a word. " Afterwards J esus 
findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold thou 
art made whole : sin no more, lest a worse thing come 
unto thee. ,, (John 5. 14). St. Peter evidently quotes the 
two last verses of our text, when he says, " Who His own 
self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we 
being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness : by 
whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going 
astray ; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and 
Bishop of your souls: , (1 Peter 2. 24, 25). Take that 
view of the text and there is neither difficulty nor contra- 
diction which some have fancied, and then attempted to 
remove or reconcile.* Saul of Tarsus, when he was 



* " It must be owned that this passage of St. Matthew [8. 17.] 
has given great difficulty to commentators. His applying, what the 
prophet seems to say of sins, to bodily infirmities ; and the bearing of 
the former, to the curing of the latter, has created no small degree of 
perplexity. Some have, accordingly, contended [See |Calixt. Ernest. 
Schol. Proph. p. 230. Sykes' Essay on Christ. Rel. p. 231. Beausob., 
Rosen m. and Wakefield, in loc] that St. Matthew has applied the 
prophecy merely in accommodation ; in which case, he supplies no 
authority as to the precise meaning of the words of the prophet : 
others again, [See Hamm., Whitby, Le Clerc, and Lightfoot, in loc] 
that the expressions admit that full and comprehensive signification, 
that will include both bodily and spiritual diseases, and which conse- 
quently received a twofold fulfilment : others again, [See Vitr. on 
Isai. 53. 4. and Raphel. Grot, and Doddridge, in loc] that Christ might 
be said to have suffered the diseases, which He removed ; from the 
anxious care and bodily harassing, with which He laboured to remedy 
them, bearing them as it were through sympathy and toil : and Bishop 
Pearce is so far dissatisfied with all of these expositions, that he is led 
to concede the possibility, that the passage in Matthew is an interpola- 
tion." — Archbishop Magee's Atonement, vol. 1. p. 413. 



ISAIAH LIIT. 



57 



brought into covenant with his God and Saviour, lays 
great stress on this important doctrine. There is scarcely 
an epistle of his, in which this glorious dogma does not 
prominently appear. When he wrote to the Romans, 
and spoke of " Jesus our Lord," he adds, " Who was 
delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our 
justification." (Bom. 4. 25). When he prayed the Corinth- 
ians in Christ's stead to be reconciled to God, he says, 
" For He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no 
sin ; that we might be made the righteousness of God in 
Him."' (2 Cor. 5. 21). When he was speaking to the 
Ephesians, and exciting their glowing gratitude to the 
Beloved in whom they were accepted, he says, " In whom 
we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of 
sins, according to the riches of His grace. " (Eph. 1. 7). 
Such was the experience and teaching of the fervent 
Paul ; and such will be the rapturous acclamation of his 
countrymen, when they shall look upon Him and mourn, 
and with heartfelt remorse whisper to each other : — - 

" But He having been pierced on account of our transgression, 
Having been bruised on account of our iniquities." 

The burden of our sins was so exceedingly great, that 
unless He had taken it upon Himself, we should have 
been lost to all eternity ; the weight of our transgression 
was so accumulated, that we could not escape being 
crushed under it, and we deserved nothing else but the 
wrath of God to the uttermost. But instead of that, we 
experienced God's mercies to the uttermost : — 

" Our entire chastisement was put upon Him." 

" The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin." 

Though sin has so far affected us with disease, that " our 
whole head was sick, and the whole heart faint ; from the 
sole of the foot even unto the head, there was no sound- 

i 



58 



LECTURE ITI. 



ness in us, but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores 
yet the Lord who forgiveth all our iniquities, hath like- 
wise healed all our diseases : 

" And by reason of His contusions we were healed." 

In the two first verses of our text, we behold Christ in 
the capacity of an Almighty and most affectionate 
Physician, who, in order to save His patients, by some 
extraordinary process, transferred their maladies to Him- 
self ; as well as the " Lamb of God which taketh away 
the sin of the world," even the " all-sufficient sacrifice." 
As for " the blood of bulls and goats, it was not possible 
that they should take away sins" nor could we remove 
them by any offerings we could bring. Rather, therefore, 
than we should perish for ever, Christ laid down " His 
own life a ransom for us which furnishes us with a 
view of the desperate state of mankind before Christ 
did so. No marvel that a converted Israelite should ex- 
claim, when dwelling on that gracious scheme, " The 
love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge that 
if one died for all, then were all dead." (2 Cor. 5. 14). 
Yes, " dead in trespasses and sins." What a terrific 
picture of man in his fallen state ! Totally subjected by 
sin, just as much as a dead corpse is to the grasp of death; 
and the fallen sinner is as incapable of rising from his 
spiritual death, without the divine help of Him who is 
the " Resurrection and the life," as Lazarus was, whose 
dead corpse was consigned to the grave, and tenanted it 
four days, until Jesus commanded him, saying, " Lazarus, 
come forth." 

In the last verse of our text, our state of helplessness 
and our relation to Christ are described in different words; 
but the idea is still the same which ran through the first 

two verses : — 



ISAIAH LIII. 



59 



"All we, like sheep, have gone astray ; 
Each of us turned to his own way ; 
But the Lord caused to meet in Him 
The iniquity of us all." 

A common, but a very graphic and significant metaphor, 
teaching the folly, diversity, and universality of sin. How 
will Israel appreciate then the intense affection, and the 
heartfelt love Jesus entertained for them, when He said 
to His disciples, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, 
and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not : but 
go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matt. 
10. 5, 6). The words of Jehovah spoken by their pro- 
phets will be brought to their remembrance. " My 
people hath been lost sheep : their shepherds have caused 
them to go astray, they have turned them away on the 
mountain : they have gone from mountain to hill, they 
have forgotten their resting-place. All that found them 
have devoured them : and their adversaries said, We 
offend not, because they have sinned against the Lord, 
the habitation of justice, even the Lord, the hope of 
their fathers,'' (Jer. 50. 6, 7). For we are told by the 
same prophet, " In those days, and in that time, saith 
the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the 
children of J udah together, going and weeping : they 
shall go, and seek the Lord their God. They shall ask 
the way to Zion with their faces thitherward, saying, 
Come, and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual 
covenant that shall not be forgotten." (verses 4, 5). "Give 
ear, 0 Shepherd of Israel, Thou that leadest Joseph 
like a flock, Thou that dwellest between the cherubims, 
shine forth." " 0 Lord God of host, how long wilt Thou 
be angry against the prayer of Thy people I Thou feedest 
them with the bread of tears ; and givest them tears to 
drink in great measure. Thou makest us a strife unto 
our neighbours: and our enemies laugh among themselves." 



60 



LECTURE III. 



" Turn us again, O Lord God of hosts, cause Thy face to 
shine; and we shall be saved." (Ps. 80. 1, 4 — 6, 19). 

If any of you have taken a view of the state of the 
Jewish nation, both spiritual and temporal, since they 
rejected the Lord of glory, what a comprehensive de- 
scription of it must he discover in the following concise 
inspired sentence ! 

" We have turned every one to his own way." 

We have all gone in the path which we chose. There 
was no union in the service of God ; no common bond to 
unite us ; we have not entered into the thoughts of God, 
nor endeavoured to follow His ways, but we went on the 
broad way of our own. We were like sheep which are 
scattered ; which have no shepherd, which wander where 
they please, with no one to collect, defend, nor guide 
them. One would wander in one direction, and another 
in another ; and of course solitary and unprotected, they 
would be exposed to the more danger. Such has been 
the state of the Jewish nation since they have rejected 
the Lord of Glory ; they have been sifted among all 
nations like as corn is sifted, and every where they turn 
to their own way ; they have neither king, nor prince, 
nor a sacrifice, nor the Ephod. " How boundless is God's 
mercies towards us," may Israel now say, " He sent His 
only begotten Son to take upon Himself our griefs, and 
to carry our sorrows ; in other w 7 ords, to be pierced be- 
cause of our transgressions, to be bruised for our iniquities, 
and put the entire chastisement w 7 e deserved upon Him, 
that we might be healed by His contusions ; in short, 

' The Lord caused to meet in Him the iniquity of us all.' " 

There is here an excellent antithesis. In ourselves we are 
scattered ; in Christ Jesus we are collected together ; by 
nature we wander and are driven headlong towards de- 



ISAIAH LIII. 61 

struction ; in Christ we find the way by which we are led 
to the gate of life. Yes, 

" The Lord hath caused to meet in Him the iniquity of us all." 

He was the subject on which all the rays, collected on the 
focal point, fell. These fiery rays which would have fallen 
on all mankind, diverged from divine justice to the east, 
west, north, and south, were deflected from them, and 
converged in Him. So the Lord hath caused to meet in 
Him the punishment due to the iniquity of ALL.* How 
unsearchable are God's judgments ! 0, dearly beloved, 
lift up your hearts with thanksgiving to your heavenly 
Father, that you are already made acquainted with your 
state by nature, but are also aware that the Lord is good 
and merciful. 0 be thankful that you belong to a Church 
which will never allow you to forget it, even if her minis- 
ters should prove faithless, and her watchmen give an 
uncertain sound ; her liturgy will keep alive in your mind, 
that you are by nature children of wrath and disobedi- 
ence ; you are directed by our beloved Church to make 
the following confession, " Almighty and most merciful 
Father ; we have erred and strayed from Thy ways like 
lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and 
desires of our own hearts. We have offended against 
Thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which 
we ought to have done ; and we have done those things 
which we ought not to have done, and there is no health 
in us. ,, May the Lord enable you to feel the force and 
truth of the confession, that you may be meet recipients 
of His redeeming love in Christ Jesus, who made a full, 
perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of all. 

I wish to call your attention, in conclusion, to the effects 
this doctrine should produce. There does not live a man 



* Adam Clarke. 



62 



LECTURE III. 



to whom David's confession is not applicable, " Behold 
I was shapen in iniquity ; and in sin did my mother con- 
ceive me." (Ps. 51. 5); and who has not added the guilt 
of actual transgression. I am anxious, very anxious, to 
impress your minds with the all important Scriptural truth, 
that we cannot be reconciled to God, unless we are inter- 
ested in the expiatory atonement, wrought out by the 
sufferings and death of Christ. This is a truth acknow- 
ledged by all orthodox professors of Christianity of every 
name. It is, therefore, of infinite importance for each 
and every one of us to inquire, as to the habitual effect 
this doctrine has upon our minds. We cannot look calm- 
ly at the grave, or contemplate the final judgment without 
dismay, unless we depend implicitly and strongly, on the 
expiatory atonement, and trust in the mercy of God as 
manifested through Christ Jesus. Dearly beloved, bear 
with me, while I give utterance to a strong conviction. 
I am convinced that there are some in this congregation, 
who are not habitually impressed with these things. My 
friends, necessity is laid upon me to tell you — for woe be 
to me if I keep silence on the subject — that without it, 
you have no prospect of salvation, and you perish ever- 
lastingly. It is an awful message — God grant that it may 
produce fruits unto repentance ! Yes, without it you 
perish everlastingly ! And what is that \ It is that the 
soul, formed capable of everlasting happiness, shall, 
through the endless ages of eternity, endure the tortures 
of hell, instead of participating in the glories of heaven. 
You hear of this from the pulpit, you think of it in retire- 
ment, and conversation often suggests it ; but let not 
conscience sleep, till you daily become more concerned, 
and place your dependence on God for eternal salvation. 
Sinful we all are, and can be justified, sanctified and 
saved only by the merits of the expiatory atonement. 
May we all learn to use the glorious doctrine of the 



ISAIAH LIU. 



63 



Atonement, as the basis of hope, and the motive to 
holiness, that none of us at last may occupy the strange 
and fearful position of men for whom a Saviour died, but 
died in vain. I appeal to you now, whose minds have 
been impressed with the doctrine of the Atonement. 
Are you interested in the expiatory atonement wrought 
out by the sufferings and death of Christ ? Are you ? 
Surround then the table of the Lord, spread before you. 
It was ordained and instituted by Christ Himself, in order 
that His followers may shew forth His death till His 
coming again. Slight not then this sacred ordinance, 
but draw near with faith, and feed on Him in your heart 
by faith, with thanksgiving. There the Spirit of God will 
convince you of sin, awaken your confidence in the Saviour, 
and will enter into a covenant with you. Amen. 



64 



LECTURE IV. 



LECTURE IV. 



ISAIAH liii. 7. 

" He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, 
Yet He opened not His mouth : 
He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, 
And as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, 
So He openeth not His mouth." 

WHEN Providence brings us in contact with unbelievers, 
and the subject matter of our conversation happens to 
be — which indeed it should always be — the truth as it is 
in Jesus ; and when we urge that faith in J esus Christ 
strengthens our faith in the law and the prophets ; (for 
certainly nothing can stamp inspiration on the Mosaic 
records and prophetic writings with greater effect, than 
the history of Jesus of Nazareth ;) our unbelieving friends 
— who exhibit far greater credulity by the rejection of 
Christianity than we by the reception of it — affirm that 
an impostor who professed to be the Messiah could easily 
contrive to establish a correspondence betweenj himself 
and the person whom the ancient prophets described as 
Israel's Redeemer. We own there is one incident, and 
only one, in the history of Jesus, which at first sight 



ISAIAH LIXI. 



65 



might furnish ground for such a supposition, namely His 
entry into Jerusalem, " And when they drew nigh unto 
Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount 
of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples, saying unto 
them, Go into the village over against you, and straight- 
way ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her : loose 
them, and bring them unto me.' 1 a And the disciples went, 
and did as Jesus commanded them, and brought the ass, 
and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set 
Him thereon;' (Matt. 21. 1, 2, 6, 7); which is a fulfilment 
of one of the prophecies of Zechariah, " Rejoice greatly 
0 daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of J erusalem : 
behold, thy king comet h unto thee : He is just, and having 
salvation ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt, 
the foal of an ass." (Matt. 9. 9). We own, I say, that 
this one prophecy could be managed to be accomplished 
by a pretender Messiah. There could have been nothing 
I easier than to have arranged that his entry into Jerusalem 
J should answer to the prophetic prediction. It would be 
beside our present subject to prove to you that in the 
fulfilment of this very prophecy, there was a display of 
superhuman knowledge. But it consists with the subject 
under review to show, that though the above prediction 
might have realized a fulfilment by a deceiver, still it does 
not invalidate the argument for Christ's divinity from all 
the other prophecies which were accomplished in Jesus 
of Nazareth. Almost all the predictions refering to the 
Messiah are of things over which no pretender could 
have had any control, It would be too ridiculous, for 
instance, for a sceptic to say, that the pretender, before 
he was born, contrived that his birth should take place 
at Bethlehem. The circumstances attending the death of 
Jesus could not have been preconcerted by a deceiver. Read 
at your leisure, for instance, Matt. 26. 15. 27. 3 — 7, and 
compare it with Zech. 11. 12, 13. Again compare Matt. 

K 



66 



LECTURE IV. 



26. 67, John 19. I, with Isaiah 50. 6; Luke 23. 33, 
with Ps. 22. 16; Luke 23. 34, with Ps. 22. 18; Matt. 

27. 39, 41, 43, with Ps. 22. 7, 8 ; Matt. 27. 46, with Ps. 
22. 1, and Matt. 27. 34, with Ps. 69. 21. Those 
passages, though few in number, will convince you, and 
ought to convince every one, that the predictions were 
not to be fulfilled by the actions of the party himself, 
but by the actions of others. It is hardly necessary to 
add, that an impostor could have no influence whatever 
in making others so act as seemingly to accomplish pro- 
phecy, however determined he might be on the fulfilling 
it himself. 

Furthermore, if an impostor had endeavoured, in the 
days of Jesus of Nazareth, to pass himself off as the 
predicted Messiah, and, consequently, had attempted to 
establish a correspondence between his own history and 
prophecy, he would certainly have taken the national 
expectation as the just interpretation of prophecy,* as 
all the pretenders indeed have attempted to do : as for 
instance, Theudas, Judas of Galilee, the two brothers, 
Asinseus and Anileus, Jonathan, Bar Cochab, Moses of 
Crete, Julian, Mahomet,-)- Sabthi-Zevi, and numberless 



* Josephus assigns their interpretation of prophecy as a reason for 
their engaging in war with the Eomans. The following are his own 
words : — (i What did elevate them in undertaking this war, was an 
ambiguous oracle that was also found in their sacred writings, how, 
about that time, one from their country should become governor of 
the habitable earth. The Jews took this prediction to belong to 
themselves in particular ; and many of the wise men were thereby 
deceived in their determination." — Book 6th of his wars, chap. 5. 

•j" When Mahomet made his appearance, about A.D. 620, the Jews 
crowded about him, taking him as their Messiah, to which character 
he first pretended. They followed him for some time, till, according 
to some, they saw him eat camel's blood ; when they abandoned him. 



ISAIAH LI1I. 



67 



others, who made their appearance in accordance with 
our Lord's declaration.* " For there shall arise false 
Ohrists, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs 
and wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible, they 
shall deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you 
before." (Matt. 24. 24, 25). But behold Jesus of Naza- 
reth ! — I am anxious to impress upon your minds the 
grand and important distinctive features between Him 
and the impostors. — He took upon Himself the form of 
a servant, He made Himself of no reputation, He made 
Himself 

" A man of sorrows, and acquainted with griefs," 

though He well knew, that such procedure would excite 
against Him the dislike of all around Him. But He was 
no impostor ; He came not to exalt Himself, but to abase 
Himself, that fallen man might be exalted. He taught 
His disciples accordingly. " Behold,' 1 said He unto them, 
" we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written 
by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be 
accomplished. For He shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, 
and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted 
on : and they shall scourge Him, and put him to death : 
and the third day He shall rise again." (Luke 18. 31 — 33). 

No pretender, however powerful or artful, could have 
produced by his own ingenuity, the striking and extraor- 
dinary correspondence which may be traced between 
Jesus of Nazareth and the mysterions personage, who 
was the theme of Moses, the Psalmist, and the Prophets. 



But the real state of the case is, that he could not help but acknow- 
ledge the Messiahship of Jesus, which the Jews did not appreciate. 

* See Appendix F. 



68 



LECTURE IV. 



For, as we said before, there are minute particulars in 
prophecy respecting that mysterious individual, over which 
that individual could have had no control ; and we fear- 
lessly affirm that no pretender, taking prophecy as his 
guide, and endeavouring to fulfil it in his life, could have 
succeeded in effecting, even in appearance, one thousandth 
part of those numerous, striking, and minute accomplish- 
ments, which are to be traced in the actions, passion, and 
death of Him, over whose head was inscribed, "Jesus of 
Nazareth, King of the Jews." 

Who is the impostor, be he ever so wise, ever so cun- 
ning, and ever so contriving, that could have managed to 
have fulfilled so minutely the delineations of God's servant 
contained in the chapter before us ? yea, we may add in 
the text before us ? Before we proceed with the exposition 
of our text, it will be necessary to say a few words 
respecting the design of Christ's manifestation in the 
character depicted in this chapter, and more particularly 
that part of the chapter which we have taken for our 
consideration this morning. 

The design, wherefore our Saviour was manifested, at 
His first coming, in this character, may be briefly stated 
to be this. The world after the fall presented a scene 
somewhat resembling the valley of EzekieFs vision, a 
scene of ruin, havoc, and desolation ; as in the valley of 
death, the winds of heaven, and the storms of winter 
had bared and bleached the bones of the slain ; so in the 
valley of spiritual slaughter, the dead souls of God's fallen 
creatures were exposed to the storms of wrath, to the 
winter of ruin. — Angels might have asked in pitying 
doubt, " Can these dry bones live V can these dead souls 
be quickened ? And no doubt these messengers of God's 
love might have been told of some scheme of substitution 
whereby God's justice might be satisfied, and His mercy 
manifested. But then came the question — a question 



ISAIAH LIII. 



69 



similar to that, which, of old, Isaac asked of his father — 
" Behold the fire and the wood ; but where is the lamb 
for a burnt offering V and then would God the Father 
reply, as Abraham of old did, " God will provide Himself 
a lamb for a burnt offering." And as of old, Abraham 
approved his faith towards God, by not ''withholding his 
son, his only son," when God claimed him as a victim, 
even so has God approved His love to the sinner, in that 
" He spared not His own Son but gave Him up for us all." 
And while angels wondered and waited for the develope- 
ment of this scheme of marvel and of love — "Lo," saith 
the Son, " Lo, I come to do thy will, 0 God !" and then 
did Jehovah reveal, in the face of astonished heaven, "the 
great mystery of godliness, God manifested in the flesh," 
saying, " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the 
sin of the world," — the Lamb which God has provided 
for a burnt offering. 

In order, however, that this Lamb of God's providing 
should be available for man's relief, it was necessary that 
that Lamb should be smitten — that He should be sacrificed; 
and therefore was this sacrifice fore-ordained, "before 
the foundation of the world, 5 ' though not made manifest 
until these last times. Adam hath caused death by the 
fall ; and this punishment would have been inflicted, to 
its full and eternal extent, upon the commission of the 
first trespass, were it not for the provisions of the cove- 
nant of Grace, ratified in heaven, whereby the Son of 
God was pledged to give Himself as "a sacrifice for the 
sins of the people," and also to fulfil the conditions of 
this new covenant, even a perfect obedience to the divine 
enactment, an unswerving conformity to the divine law, 
and thus to work out a righteousness, not for Himself, 
but for as many as were to experience the benefits of His 
redemption. 

From all eternity, therefore, was He the Lamb, slain 



70 



LECTURE IV. 



in the councils of heaven ! Virtually, the sacrifice was 
offered as soon as the creature transgressed, and yet 
spared, through the operations of the covenant of grace ; 
typically, the sacrifice was offered in every victim, whose 
blood was shed upon the altars of the faithful ; and 
actually, the sacrifice w T as offered when Calvary beheld the 
spectacle of woe — even the incarnate Son of God bound 
and bleeding, and dying on the cross ! 

Such, then, was the object and design of this manifes- 
tation of mercy ! Such was the sacrifice whereby the 
object was to to be accomplished ! Such was the scheme 
of redemption, displaying a miracle of wisdom and of 
love, of which the fountain can only dwell in the mind 
and in the heart of the Eternal. Oh, what a miracle of 
love is here manifested ! " Greater love," saith the 
Saviour, " hath no man than this, that a man lay down 
his life for his friend but who can fathom the love of 
God, in that, " when we were yet sinners," He sent His 
Son to save us ! Who can fathom Christ's love to the 
ruined, in that, " when we were yet enemies, 1 ' He came 
to die for us ! His was a love high as that glory which, 
for a time, He resigned — deep as that abasement to which 
for a time, He submitted. Truly, when considering this 
scheme of mercy, well may every heart exclaim with the 
Apostle, " Oh the depth of the riches, both of the wis- 
dom and the Jcnoiuledge" and well may we add, of the 
love " of God !" " How unsearchable are His judgments, 
and His ways past finding out P Reflect but for one 
moment upon that dignity which He originally possessed ; 
reflect on the humiliation, the sufferings, the death to 
which He submitted ; reflect on the object of these suffer- 
ings, and of that death — that ruined sinners might be 
saved ; and reflect still further, on the character of those 
for whom He endured all this— that not only were they 
ruined, but also rebellious ; and when you have surveyed 



ISAIAH LIII. 



the whole, then well may you exclaim with the Apostle, 
" Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He 
loved us !" Well may you long to be " able to compre- 
hend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and 
depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ, which 
pa sseth knowledge and, having understood the mysteries 
of that love, then be it yours to adopt the Apostle's con- 
conclusion, " For the love of Christ constraineth us ; 
because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were 
all dead : and that He died for all, that they which live 
should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him 
which died for them, and rose again," (2 Cor. 5. 14, 15). 

Having made these few preliminary remarks, we shall 
now be able to enter into the spirit of the sacred text 
before us. In considering the preceding verses, w T e 
observed, first, Israel's objections against Christ crucified 
— the preaching of which was and is, till this very day, 
as declared by St. Paul, " to them that perish foolishness," 
and proved to " the Jews a stumbling-block which, I 
think, I have clearly shewn unto you to be contained in 
the second and third verses in the chapter before us. 
Last Sabbath I endeavoured to point out to you from 
the contents of the 4th, 5th, and 6th verses, Israel's godly 
sorrow for Christ's sufferings, which must take place as 
soon as they shall turn unto the Lord, and the veil shall 
be removed from their hearts, and the Spirit of grace and 
supplication be poured out upon them, and they shall 
look upon Him whom they have pierced ; and mournfully 
with bitter remorse and contrite heart, acknowledge, 

" Surely He had borne our griefs, 
And carried our sorrows, &c." 

We illustrated our view on those passages by referring 
to several predictions in the Old Testament which were 
foretold to the same effect. And in the text now under 



72 



LECTURE IT. 



reTiew, Israel seems to comprehend that which angels 
desired to look into, but could not, even the covenant 
between the Eternal Father and His Eternal Son, for the 
redemption of mankind : a subject, which is at present 
almost lost sight of amongst the J ews, and alas ! very 
few Christians have correct ideas respecting it. 

There are, indeed, few passages in the ancient writings 
of the Hebrews, which shew plainly that their writers had 
an idea of an eternal compact between the Father and 
the Son respecting our redemption. Those passages are 
certainly now mixed up with fables, still they evidence 
that the Scriptural doctrine of the economy of redemption 
is not altogether obliterated from the pages of Jewish 
books. The following remarkable passage occurs as a 
quotation from one of the most ancient writers, in an old 
book called Yalkut Shimoni — a commentary on the Old 
Testament. It is part of an exposition on Isaiah, 60. 
After stating that the Light is the Messiah, and that 
Satan trembled at His very sight, and that God an- 
nounced to Satan his final overthrow by the Messiah, the 
passage continues to run thus : — " The Holy One — blessed 
be He* — began to stipulate with Him [the Messiah]. 
He said to Him, The sins of those who are treasured up 
beside thee, will bring thee under a yoke of iron, and 
make thee like this calf, whose eyes are dim, and will 
torment thy spirit with unrighteousness ; and because of 
transgression, thy tongue will cleave to the roof of thy 
mouth. [Ps. 137. 6.]. Dost thou accede to this I Messiah 
rejoined before the Holy One — blessed be He — Lord of 
the universe, Perhaps this trouble is for many years. The 
Holy One — Blessed be He — said, By thy life and the life 
of thy head, A week have I decreed upon thee, (Dan 9. 
27). If it grieve thy soul, I will expel, or afflict thee 



* The general appellation for God in Rabbinical writings. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



73 



now. He replied before Him, Lord of the universe, 
with heartfelt gladness, and with heartfelt joy, I take this 
upon myself, on condition that not one of Israel shall 
perish : and that not only those that are alive shall be 
saved in my days, but also those that are hid in the dust. 
And not only the dead shall be saved in my days, but also 
those dead, who died from the time of the first man until 

now; and not these only, but also 

all that is in thy mind to create and have not been yet 
created. Thus I consent, and on these terms I take this 
office upon myself.''* So that if the Jews were to ex- 
amine carefully their own ancient writings, on which they 
lay very great stress, they would even now perceive that 
the Messiah must have first suffered and then enter 
into glory, agreeably to the contract (if I may so express 
myself) between the Father and the Son ; even according 
to their own expounders of the law. They would at once 
see the force of the expression made use of by a disciple 
of Gamaliel in his epistle to the Hebrews — and only in 
his epistle to the Hebrews, for they " being instructed 
out of the law," could easily comprehend it — u Jesus was 
made a SUKETY of a better testament:' (Heb. 7. 22). 



dpwtw "fan* D-ttntf bbn V v a w rora m u pn brim * 
ryy lrraw ntn bwi ima v w> ^jja 'T&xsrt? dw 
pnnr6 -\mb tjtv bv Drv/imym bwz irm rw*:p|wDi 
Kst^ ubw bv mil nn u pn ^b rrra im *pun "pro 
yaw nwn s "rn Tn rtrpn b*x an jvd-i mm -yx vna 

iyy ^by bipn •a 1 ? rratcai ^ n^Q D^y bp mm 
«]N k^n to izbz mm abi bmwQ 72w vb& 
^ ttb$ to w T^i oyiD «^ isbd D^mty orm* 
k^i i^oy ]wxi7) ma niD^o ijid^ d\hd d/iik 

1^1 D^SJ K^l TO W 6|» K^K 12bl *f?H 

12 1*0:1: *6i maun 1 ? i^jn ^ nr6y ^b 

L 



74 



LECTURE IV. 



To as many of us, however, as Christ has already proved 
to be both the power of God and the wisdom of God, 
we are even now able, by the searching of the Scripture, 
and the assistance of divine tuition, to know in some 
degree the eternal counsel of Jehovah Jesus respecting 
this fallen and ruined world ; and the text for our con- 
sideration this morning seems as the master-key to the 
ark which contains the title deeds of our redemption. 
There is no adequate word in the English language to 
express the full meaning of the first word of our text, 
which the original conveys, without circumlocution. 
The English version has it, " He was oppressed," but 
this rendering gives me by no means the idea of the 
original. The celebrated Bishop Lowth seems to have 
got hold of the right idea intended in the original text, 
and he therefore translated, " It was exacted? Yet I 
must confess, that even this translation does not give us 
the full force of the Hebrew expression. The word is 
generally used in the Hebrew language in reference to 
creditor and debtor, when the former — in the event of the 
fulness of time of payment — resolves to take decided and 
rigorous steps to exact his due from the latter, even by 
severe tortures and oppression. All this is expressed in a 
single word of the original. The following literal transla- 
tion may perhaps give a more correct idea of the import 
of our text : — 

" He was rigorously demanded to pay the debt,* 
And He submitted Himself, 
And did not open His mouth. 



nron m i& jtparr tcoa im jtiddi tra * 

Rabbi David Kimchi in loco. 

" Exigebatur debitum." — Vitringa. 

" Exactionem sustinuit, vel solutio exacta fuit." — Michaelis. 
u Exigitur debitum, et ille ad diem respondit." — Dath* 



ISAIAH LIU. 



75 



Like the Lamb was He led to the slaughter, 
But as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, 
And did not open His mouth." 

The Bible is in truth, and indeed, a wonderful book. Its 
every verse comprehends a great deal, even single words 
being as mines of truth, in which, if you patiently dig, 
you will find stores of instruction. Dearly beloved, I 
conjure you to be very careful in reading that glorious 
book, that you pass not over parts, as though they might 
be unimportant. The single word tdh — or, as I have liter- 
ally translated it into English,— 

" He was rigorously demanded to pay the debt," 

pictures to our minds the state of our first parents 
immediately after the fall, when they, with their whole 
posterity, were condemned in accordance with divine 
justice — to eternal death and destruction, unless for 
them, 

" Some other, able, and as willing, pay 
The rigid satisfaction, death for death." 

We are reminded of the force of Isaiah's inspired and 
glowing description of God the Father's unwillingness 
that the sinner should die. " And He saw that there was 
no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor : 
therefore His arm brought salvation unto Him, and His 
righteousness, it sustained Him. ,, (Is. 59. 16). We are 
then reminded of the " Ransom" even the Son of God, 
who graciously came forward voluntarily, saying, " Lo I 
come ; in the volume of the book it is written of me, I 
delight to do thy will, O my God, yea thy law is within 
my heart." Both the above quotations, I conceive to 
have been most beautifully and graphically paraphrased 
by the most eminent Christian Bard in the following 
lines : — 



76 



LECTURE IV. 



" Say, heavenly powers, where shall we find such love ? 
Which of you will be mortal, to redeem 
Man's mortal crime, and just, the unjust to save ? 
Dwells in all heaven charity so dear ? 
He ask'd ; but all the heavenly quire stood mute, 
And silence was in heaven ; on man's behalf, 
Patron or intercessor, none appear'd, 
Much less that durst upon his own head draw 

The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set. 

***** 

***** 

Behold ME then ; me for him, life for life 

I offer ; on me let thine anger fall : 

Account me man ; I for his sake will leave 

Thy bosom, and this glory, next to thee, 

Freely put off ; and for him lastly die, 

Well pleased. On me let death wreak all his rage 

Such knowledge of God's redeeming love is indeed too 
wonderful, but not to those whose minds are reflected from 
the mirror of Revelation ; for the subject is the theme of 



* Milton's Paradise lost, Book 3. One would almost be inclined to 
think that the Poet had taken a leaf from the ancient book Zohar. 
The following is to be found in the second volume of that extra- 
ordinary book, (Amsterdam edition, A.M. 5566. or A.D. 1804.) 
fol. 212. col. 1. 

bs pn*o bi rono bi n&pi t&yn amra buy rwo pa 
\rr*n :rvby rtfn* irtei ivuv* bmwi pto 

biDteb bwi m -d *nn $b rvby bwy) wbyn b'pn 
K^n v»bn pa -win tiwhhin *twiy by rnnio« 

Also a little lower down on the same page, 

pno to ppfon nn na» rtn psrp pnVie pran *wip «5n»a fcrw Tin to 

iwdw ^yo yb pbDn n^n *wrc>n jkdVsd wyion 

How very much like the lines, 

Behold ME then ; me for him, life for life 
I offer ; on me let thine anger fall," &c. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



77 



many prophecies, the centre of all our hopes; and no 
sooner are sinful men's eyes opened than he beholds won- 
derful things out of God's law. No sooner does Christ 
dwell in his heart by faith, and he is rooted and grounded 
in love, than he is able " to comprehend with all saints, 
what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height ; 
and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge. 11 
The Jews, therefore, who as unbelievers rejected the 
claims of Jesus as the Messiah, in consequence of His 
humiliation, shall no sooner see Jesus come in the clouds 
of heaven, than they shall wail because of Him, and shall 
acknowledge that His great sufferings were, because, 

" He was rigorously demanded to pay the debt, 
And He submitted Himself, 

And did not open His mouth." 

The theme of Redemption, dearly beloved, is of all 
subjects the most worthy of the Christian's meditation. 
Let us, therefore, dwell for a short time on this most 
endearing subject, and I pray God that it may be the 
means of stimulating us to continual watchfulness and 
prayer, that we may be able to say with the great Apostle, 
that u Christ Jesus is made unto us wisdom and righteous- 
ness, and sanctification and redemption.' 1 

Redemption, dearly beloved, may be viewed under a 
twofold aspect. First : As the result of a power which 
Christ exerted. Secondly : As the fruit of a price which 
He paid. On the one hand, dominion may be usurped ; 
and for the overthrow of that dominion, it is necessary 
that power should be opposed to power. On the other 
hand, a dominion possessed of right may be exercised 
righteously, and this righteous dominion may be offended ; 
and for the propitiation of this offended authority, a ran- 
som must be paid. 

Now, in both of these lights, had the Lamb of God to 



78 



LECTURE IV. 



work out salvation for fallen men. Satan had usurped an 
unrighteous dominion over the sinner, and the Saviour 
overthrew Satan by His might. God's law, again, had 
asserted a righteous claim to man's obedience, and man 
had contemned its authority ; and to the violated honour 
of this Law had the Saviour to make satisfaction. The 
former, as I have said, the Saviour conquered by His 
power; the latter He reconciled by a price. When, 
therefore, the Saviour came to redeem His people from 
the power of sin, He entered into a deadly contest with 
the great enemy of souls. By " His obedience unto 
death" He baffled all the temptations, and frustrated all 
the plans of the adversary. All his venom and malignity 
were concentrated against the Divine Redeemer ; and when 
He died, all the enmity of sin, all the power of Satan, were 
overthrown. Others conquer by a life of triumph — He 
conquered by a death of anguish and ignominy ; for on 
the cross, " He overcame principalities and powers, and 
made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it." 
Death, who had struggled with, and wounded the heel 
of the glorious Redeemer — death himself fell exhausted 
in the conflict, and effected his own discomfiture and 
downfall. " Through death," St. Paul instructs the 
Hebrew Christians, " Christ Jesus destroyed him that 
had the power of death, that is, the devil." (Heb. 2. 14). 
How was the serpent crushed by the Saviour's fall ! 
" 0 death ! where is thy sting V must have been the 
theme of angel's song and seraph's lyre. Death, in 
grasping that mighty prey, paralyzed himself ; in breaking 
down this temple, Satan demolished his own throne. Yes, 
dearly beloved, it was by dying, that Christ finished the 
achievement which, from all eternity, He had covenanted to 
undertake ; it was by dying that He reinstated fallen man 
in the position from which he had been hurled. For by 
submitting to death, Christ broke the spell of numberless 



ISAIAH LIII. 79 

generations, dashing away the fetters, and opening the 
graves, of an oppressed and rifled population. Let us 
strike a joyful strain, with notes of gratitude and praise, 
" 0 grave! where is thy victory?" Amid the mysteries of 
the tomb, the career of the Saviour was one of signal 
success. For when Christ had died, and descended into 
the grave, and returned without seeing corruption, then 
was it made possible that every child of Adam might be 
emancipated from the dominion of evil ; and, in place of 
w T oe and shame, which sin procured as the heritage of a 
man, there was the transcendently glorious brightness of 
purchased immortality graciously offered to the acceptance 
of the children of our race. What a glorious truth ! 
" Christ rose again for our justification !" He burst forth 
from the grave with all the might and majesty of a 
conqueror, arrayed in the spoils of victory, and bearing 
the treasures of redemption, as trophies of His triumph. 
Let the redeemed of the Lord now say, " 0 give thanks 
unto the Lord ; for He is good ; because His mercy 
endureth for ever." Let them shout with joy, 

" 0 death ! where is thy sting ? 
O grave ! where is thy victory ?" 

For Christ has made good His gracious declaration : — 

" I will ransom thee from the power of the grave ; 
I will redeem thee from the power of death : 
O death, I will be thy plagues ; 
O grave, I will be thy destruction." (Hos. 13. 14.) 

Let us all with one accord now lift up our hearts to Grod, 
and raise the exulting anthem : 

" Thou hast ascended on high, 
Thou hast led captivity captive ; 
Thou hast received gifts for men ; 



80 



LECTURE IV. 



Yea, for the rebellious also, 

That the Lord God might dwell among them. 

Blessed be the Lord, who daily loadeth us with benefits, 

Even the God of our salvation." (Ps. 68. 18, 19.) 

The Redeemer of mankind soared on high, and in 
accordance with His gracious promise, He sent the 
Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, who inspired His dis- 
ciples with zeal for the promotion of their Lord and 
Master's victories, and for mortal man's salvation ; they 
went forth proclaiming through the universe, that death 
was abolished, and the ruined redeemed, and the gates of 
heaven thrown open to the rebel and the outcast. The 
triumph was complete, in the amplest magnitude of signi- 
fication. And even now are heaven, and hell, and earth, 
together raising a united testimony to the completeness of 
those triumphs, which the Prince of Peace has achieved. 
Heaven gives its testimony by the myriads of its grateful 
worshippers ; hell bears witness to the greatness of the 
triumphs of Jesus by sin's bruised head, and death's 
broken sting, and despair's rifled chambers; and earth 
bears her record by her thousands of rejoicing believers, 
who are looking and hoping for the day when they also 
shall be made conquerors through Him that loved them. 

Thus, then, did the Lamb of God accomplish the over- 
throw of Satan ; and this is one of the elements of that 
redemption, whereby " He took away the sins of the 
world." But when the justice of Jehovah appeared, 
claiming satisfaction for a violated law, the Saviour re- 
sisted not its demands. He acknowledged that the claim 
was righteous, or in the words of our text, 

" He was rigorously demanded for the debt, 
But he submitted Himself, 
And opened not His mouth." 

He offered a ransom, in order to redeem us from the 



ISAIAH LIII. 



81 



curse of sin, and purchase our salvation ; yea, He offered 
Himself ; His body and His soul as a sacrifice. When 
He appeared, therefore, to make atonement for the sinner, 
all the transgressions of a wicked world were imputed to 
Him. " He bore our sins in His own body on the tree." 
In our stead He assumed them as His own. — How great 
must have been our Redeemer's agony, when He felt 
Himself laden and bowed down by that load which His 
righteous soul abhorred — when He felt that "ail" the "sin"* 
— the future as well as the past — of His people clung to 
Him. 

"But He submitted Himself, 
And opened not His mouth." 

Thus will the children of Judah and Ephraim — weeping and 
mourning over their then felt great ingratitude and wicked- 
ness in rejecting Jesus as the true and only Eedeemer, 
in consequence of His humiliating sufferings — cry aloud, 
and proclaim the wonders of His grace, that He was a 
vicarious sacrifice. — He did not suffer for His own sin, 
but He voluntarily offered to pay a ransom for us — 
who had forfeited life and deserved nothing else but eternal 
death — in order that we might have life in Him, and this 
engagement He was called upon in the fulness of time to 
discharge. Yes, 

" He was rigorously demanded to pay the debt. 
But He submitted Himself, 
And opened not His mouth." 

It is wonderful, how the converted Israelite is able to 
enter into the meaning of the Mosaic or Levitical economy, 
When Saul of Tarsus was a disciple of the " Pharisee, 
named Gamaliel, 1 ' and a mad persecutor — according to his 
own account — of the infant Church of Christ, he could 
discover nothing in the book of Leviticus to convince 

M 



82 



LECTURE IV. 



him that Moses wrote of Christ. He could not see that 
the Paschal Lamb, by the sprinkling of whose blood 
the children of Israel were delivered from destruction ; 
or the Lamb that was daily sacrificed for the sins of the 
people, was designed to direct our attention to " the Lamb 
of God that taketh away the sin of the whole world 
namely to the Just who died for the unjust. No sooner, 
however, did the Lord Jesus manifest Himselffrom hea- 
ven to Saul — as He will do one day to the whole nation 
of Israel, to whom this Benjamite was a pattern — than 
the scales, as it were, fell from his eyes, and he was able 
to behold and appreciate the beauties of the sacrificial 
economy. Read carefully his epistle to his Hebrew 
Christian brethren. Also St. Peter, who was emphatically 
called the Apostle of the circumcision, calls attention, it 
appears, to the typical character of the Mosaic ordinances. 
For when he presses on our attention the necessity of cul- 
tivating holiness, he enforces it with the following argu- 
ment : — " Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not 
redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, 
from your vain conversation received by tradition from 
your fathers ; but with the precious blood of Christ, 
as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. 1 '' 
(1 Pet, 1. 18, 19). The same view— for it is the 
only true view — will the Israel of God, as a nation, 
entertain of the typical character of the Lamb so often 
referred to in the Pentateuch. Therefore when they shall 
be able to comprehend the mystery of Christ's voluntary 
substitution — as expressed in the first part of our text — 
they will illustrate it by an allusion to the Levitical law ; 
for Israel proceeds to say, 

" Like as the lamb was He led to the slaughter." 

Our attention is naturally turned to the innocent lamb 
which God had provided as a substitute for the child of 



ISAIAH LIII. 



promise, even Isaac. Isaac was the representative of the 
whole Jewish nation, as well as a type of Christ, and it 
would appear to every reader of the history of that 
remarkable trial, that had not God provided " a lamb for 
a burnt offering " instead of Isaac, there would have been 
an end of the Jewish nation. Indeed, before Isaac was 
born, Abraham himself was apprehensive that he would 
leave no posterity to inherit the promises. "And Abram 
said, Lord God, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go 
childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of 
Damascus I And Abram said, Behold, to me thou hast 
given no seed : and, lo, one born in my house is mine 
heir." (Gen. 15. 2, 3). But Abraham soon learnt that 
God was faithful to His promises; he had occasion to 
know by experience, that what is impossible with men 
is possible with God. (Gen. 17. 17). He was taught the 
doctrine of a vicarious atonement ; he knew that the Lord 
could be just and yet the justifier of the sinner, by trans- 
ferring the threatened punishment to an innocent and guilt- 
less victim, of which the lamb was an emblem. He could 
therefore confidently say to the representative of the 
myriads of His descendants, " My son, God will provide 
Himself a Lamb ;"" which was no doubt a type as well as 
Isaac himself, of the Lamb of God, which was "slain from 
the foundation of the world." It is curious that some of 
the Rabbies should say, that the ram (Gen. 22. 13.) was 
created and appointed for this purpose, in the first six 
days of the creation.* However, the ram has done 
nothing to deserve to be slaughtered. 

Furthermore, our attention is naturally turned to the 
Paschal Lamb, as we have already stated, by the 
sprinkling of whose blood Abraham's seed were delivered 



:nwT3 n^ 1 nwa -pS rrn pin 

Rabbi Solomon Jarchi in loco. 



84 



LECTURE IT. 



from the destruction they so richly merited ; whilst that 
Lamb was innocent. Again, we are forcibly reminded 
of the daily sacrifice for the sins of the people. I say. 
we are forcibly reminded of the daily sacrifice, because, 
this daily sacrifice shews us that we must have a continual 
substitute ; and the children of Israel were thus daily 
taught the doctrine of the vicarious Atonement. But 
we are also forcibly reminded of the insufficiency of those 
sacrifices, because they must needs be offered up daily. 
And this expression seems to be the ground-work of 
a converted Israelite's argument when dwelling on the 
Book of Leviticus : " For such an High Priest became us, 
who is holy, harmless, undefined, separate from sinners, 
and made higher than the heavens ; who needeth not 
daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for 
his own sins, and then for the people's : for this He did 
once, when He offered up Himself." (Heb. 7. 26, 27). 
Again : " And every priest standeth daily ministering 
and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can 
never take away sins ; but this man, after He had 
offered one sacrifice for sins, for ever sat down on the 
right hand of God." (10. 11, 12). 

I say again, dearly beloved, be careful in reading the 
Holy Bible, that you pass not over parts, as though they 
might be unimportant. Neither rest satisfied with the 
primary meaning and the obvious application. Holy writ 
has a hidden sense as well as an open ; and to them who 
seek for the same with prayer, many a beautiful import 
is even now disclosed, which would never be suspected by 
the careless or cursory observer.* 



* The most learned amongst modern Jewish Rabbies are free to 
confess, that the book of Leviticus is unintelligible to them. When the 
author was a pupil of Ilabbi Nathan, a celebrated Rabbi in the north of 



ISAIAH LIII. 



In our text for this morning, we discover another in- 
stance of Isaiah's peculiar style, namely of explaining his 
own predictions, immediately after he delivered them; 
which we have briefly noticed in our last discourse on the 
chapter before us. I conceive the second part of the verse 
under review, to be nothing else but an inspired and most 
sublime paraphrase of the first part, uttered by the same 
sanctified and purified lips of the son of Amoz, whose 
mouth one of the seraphim touched with a live coal from 
off the altar. (Is. 6. 6, 7.) The text, as it were, is, 

" He was rigorously demanded to pay the debt, 
But He submitted Himself, 
And opened not His mouth.'' 

The explanation or paraphrase, as it were, is 5 

" Like the Lamb was He led to the slaughter, 
But as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, 
And He opened not His mouth." 

What a beautiful and graphic description ! We can 
almost see here the meek and patient Redeemer led along 
by an infuriated multitude ; He offered no resistance, but 
" submitted Himself V to Him that judgeth righteously. 
The holy Jesus knew the demand was just; He was, 



Poland, his preceptor told him that he spent 20 years over that book, but 
he made very little progress as to the correct import of that extraordin- 
ary code. The posthumous works of another celebrated Rabbi have lately 
been published in Russia, in which the author avers that the book of 
Leviticus must remain unfathomable till the coming of Messiah. A 
young Polish Jew, who has read the New Testament, gives his reasons 
for the Rabbi's perplexities about it, " because he had not read the 
writings of Rabbi Saul, the disciple of Rabbi Gamaliel, nor the 
writings of Rabbi Simon !" See Appendix G. 



86 



LECTURE IV. 



therefore, perfectly silent and composed. Jesus knew 
that He had all power at His disposal. He might have 
destroyed His enemies with the breath of His lips, as 
He will assuredly one day do. (Is. 11. 4; Rev. 2. 16 ; 19. 
15.) Yet He submitted Himself as quietly and gently, 
as though He had no power. Yes, 

" But like as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, 
And He opened not His mouth." 

The Mediator never opened His mouth to revile or com- 
plain. It was only opened to bless those who cursed Him, 
and to make intercession for His enemies and murderers. 

Both Jews and Socinians have made great efforts to get 
rid of the real doctrines of this chapter, and no wonder, for 
it is directly opposed to their heterodox theology. They 
have attempted to apply this chapter to various persons. 
Time will not permit me at present to examine all their 
ideas respecting it ;* but I may just mention one person, 
who is supposed to be the subject of it. Many of the Jewish 
Rabbies suppose that Jeremiah was the theme of the 53rd 
chapter of Isaiah, which view the learned Grotius seems 
to think the only right view. Now, true it is that Jere- 
miah was remarkable for piety, zeal, and faithfulness, and 
on that account, was much hated and persecuted ; still 
he is very far from answering the character of this pre- 
diction. He says of himself, that he bore his sufferings 
very ill. He cursed the day of his birth ; he remonstrated 
with God for giving way to the treachery of His people ; 
he prayed that he might see God's vengeance on them ; 
and was very unwilling to die. It would be well for every 
Jew, or disciple of Grotius, who entertains such a view of 
the chapter before us, just to compare our text with Jer. 



See Appendix H. 



ISAIAH LI1I. 



87 



12. 1 — 4; 20. 12—18; and let him then say whether 
Jeremiah's character was at all like that described in the 
text : — 

" Like as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, 
And He opened not His mouth ?" 

No, dearly beloved, Jesus, and only Jesus, is the theme 
of this chapter and of this text. Read His history in the 
Gospels, and see whether there is anything wanting to 
substantiate the correctness of our assertion ; yea, even 
His most virulent and venomous enemies, in their blas- 
phemous accounts of the Holy One of Israel, bear testi- 
mony to the truth, that Jesus was altogether such an one 
as described in our text : — 

" Like as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, 
And He opened not His mouth."* 

And thus suffering, the Man Christ Jesus has not merely 
set before us an open door of access unto the Father's 
presence — not merely has He purchased salvation for as 
many as believe, but He has actually purchased themselves. 
" Souls were the hire," which He laboured for ; He has 
bought them at full value. He has paid for them the full 
price. " With His own blood has He purchased His 
Church. 1 ' So that as aforetimes, God could not be a just 
God, if He pardoned the unrighteous ; now God cannot 
be a just God, if He refuse to grant a free pardon and a 
gracious welcome to all those whose salvation has been 
purchased by the blood of sprinkling. Thus, then, Chris- 
tian brethren, is the Lamb of God, the author and finisher 
of our redemption ; upon the cross He achieved it — when 
He was lifted up as a sacrifice between earth and heaven ; 



See Appendix I. 



88 



LECTURE IV. 



to the one offering satisfaction — to the other, publishing 
salvation. " Of which salvation the prophets have en- 
quired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the 
grace that should come unto you : searching what, or 
what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in 
them did signify, when it testified before-hand the suffer- 
ings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." (1 Pet. 
1. 10, 11). 

" Salvation ! O the joyful sound ! 
'Tis pleasure to our ears.*' 

Yea, there is a salvation in His name ; for He is Jesus, 
the Saviour of His people from their sins. There is sal- 
vation in His acts ; for He has come as the surety, and 
by the sacrifice of Himself, He has averted the wrath of 
His Father — by the price of His blood He has purchased 
their redemption from the penalty of sin ; while, as the 
Lion of the tribe of Judah, He has combated and con- 
quered all the enemies of the soul, and gained the deliver- 
ance of His people from the plague and pollution of their 
trespasses. There is salvation in His words ; for they are 
words of mercy, and His promises are full of tenderness. 
" I," saith He, " even I, am He that blotteth out thy 
transgressions, for mine own sake, and will not remember 
thy sins."" 

" Salvation ! O thou dying Lamb ! 

To thee the praise belongs ; 
Salvation shall inspire our hearts, 

And dwell upon our tongues." 

In conclusion, dear brethren, I cannot give you a more 
beautiful practical conclusion from our foregoing medita- 
tions, than that already given by St. Peter. " Wherefore 
gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the 
end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the 



ISAIAH LIII. 



89 



revelation of Jesus Christ; as obedient children, not 
fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in 
your ignorance : but as He which hath called you is holy, 
so be ye holy in all manner of conversation ; because it 
is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. And if ye call on 
the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth ac- 
cording to every man's work, pass the time of your 
sojourning here in fear ; forasmuch as ye know that ye were 
not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, 
from your vain conversation received by tradition from 
your fathers ; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of 
a lamb without blemish and without spot ; who verily 
was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but 
was manifest in these last times for you, who by Him do 
believe in God, that raised Him up from the dead, and 
gave Him glory ; that your faith and hope might be in 
God." (1 Pet. 1. 13—21). 



90 



LECTURE V. 



LECTURE V. 



ISAIAH liii. 8, 9, 10. 

" He was taken from prison, and from judgment : 
And who shall declare His generation ? 
For He was cut off out of the land of the living : 
For the transgression of my people was He stricken. 
And He made His grave with the wicked, 
And with the rich in His death ; 
Because He had done no violence, 
Neither was any deceit in His mouth. 
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him ; 
He hath put Him to grief : 

When thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, 
He shall see His seed, 
He shall prolong His days, 

And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand." 

TO have a proper understanding of the words I have just 
read, it will be necessary for us to trace the footsteps of 
our blessed Lord and Master among the crooked and 
perverse generation whom He came to save, — we must 
follow Him to Gethsemane, to the Judgment-hall, and to 
Calvary. — We must, as it were, behold His agony and 
bloody sweat, His cross and passion — we must be specta- 
tors of the tribunal and judgment seat before which the 
Saviour of the world, the Judge of all things, stood. — 



ISAIAH LIU. 



91 



There is something awfully strange in the whole scene, 
enough to overpower angelic understanding— for even 
angels, before the fulness of time came, had vainly striven 
to look into those mysteries of redemption. Behold the 
Roman Governor seated on his tribunal — look at his 
agitated countenance ; his visage betrays his feelings ; he 
cannot conceal them. What is all this consternation and 
dreadful dismay 1 Lo ! before the judgment seat, in 
meek, but majestic silence, stands Immanuel — the Prince 
of Peace, who had done no violence, neither was any 
deceit in His mouth, but whom an infuriated populace, 
with most fiendlike expression of rage and scorn flashing 
from their countenances, demand to be crucified. 

Yet observe, amidst all this rage, the celestial expres- 
sion, which beams over the countenance of the "man of 
sorrows," — a meekness, which no insults can ruffle ; a 
compassion, which no provocation can extinguish ; a peace, 
w r hich no sufferings can disturb. 

Watch the chief priests and elders, and all the council, 
fiends in human form, seeking false witness against Jesus, 
to put Him to death. Listen to the accusations brought 
against Him — but He openeth not His mouth. — The 
miserable and wretched traitor, repenting of his satanic 
scheme, bringeth back " the thirty pieces of silver to the 
chief priests and elders, saying, I have sinned, in that 
I have betrayed innocent blood." Pilate " knew that for 
envy they had delivered Plim and to crown all, " when 
he was set down on the judgment-seat, his wife sent unto 
him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man, 
for I have suffered many things this day in a dream be- 
cause of Him." No wonder that Pilate could not pass 
one single syllable of judgment against Jesus — no wonder 
that Pilate should ask His impious accusers, who cried, 
" Crucify Him," " Why, what evil hath He done f No 
wonder that the Governor should be lost in astonishment 



92 



LECTURE V. 



and dismay, and that he should be induced to exert all 
his influence to release Him. But listen again to the 
infuriated shouts, which rend the clouds and peal to the 
skies ; hearken to their satanic insinuations, " If thou 
let this man go, thou art not Caesar's friend. 1 ' 

Let us for a few moments dwell on the character of the 
Roman Governor ; it may serve as an important lesson, 
teaching us the importance of right and equitable princi- 
ples. Certain parts of Pilate's conduct gave rise to many 
disputes amongst expounders of Holy Writ, but all seem 
to concur in condemning him on the whole, in consequence 
of his procedure, which shews that he acted with palpable 
injustice. He was a weak as well as a wicked person. 
Having irritated and disgusted the Jewish people, over 
whom he was appointed ruler, by extortion and cruelty, he 
feared lest their complaints should cause him to be de- 
prived of his office ; and therefore, he dared not to oppose 
their will, even when conscienciously convinced, that by 
doing so he would act in direct opposition to justice and 
equity. You cannot help observing, throughout the 
whole account of Pilate's dealing with Christ, that he 
was perfectly satisfied as to the innocence of Jesus, and 
the malice of His accusers. Every interrogation seemed 
to have corroborated his conviction that there was no 
fault in Him, and made him more anxious to procure His 
release. And when at length he yielded, and gave up 
J esus to the will of His inveterate enemies, it was avowed- 
ly because he was overborne by the cry for His destruction, 
and in no degree because he was persuaded of His being 
worthy of death. 

We search in vain for a similar scene to that exhibited 
when Pilate surrendered up Jesus into the hands of His 
enemies. He passed no judgment of condemnation 
against Jesus, but on the contrary, wishing to show by a 
most significative action his firm belief in the innocence 



ISAIAH LIII. 



93 



of Christ, Pilate "took water, and washed his hands 
before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood 
of this just person : see ye to it." What an extraordinary 
scene ! Here we have an instance of that false and 
detestable liberalism, which sacrifices conviction and 
principle for the sake of wicked expediency. The judge 
acquits the just one, and at the same time delivers Him 
to death. He wishes to have no share in the murder about 
to be committed, though it could not be committed but 
by his order or concurrence. Alas ! for liberal con- 
sistency. Pilate is not the only man, who whilst sinning 
against conscience, has discovered some excuse, in extenu- 
ation of his conduct, thinking that he would be able to 
do things which with men are impossibilities — to do a 
wicked deed, which should produce a just consequence. 
They are God's prerogatives, and only God's, to make 
good come out of evil, and the wrath of man to praise 
Him ; but not of inconsistent man. 

But how remarkably striking was the testimony given 
to our Lord ! The Holy and Just One w T as to be " num- 
bered with the transgressors," and consequently to die 
as a malefactor : but we search in vain for a parallel in 
historical annals — whoever died as a malefactor, before 
or since, with the judge's verdict in his favour of his being 
a "just person?' 1 But Jehovah, who moves in a mys- 
terious way, has thus ordered, that the enemies of Christ 
should testify that " He had done no violence, neither 
was any deceit in His mouth." The son of perdition, 
who betrayed Him, would bring no accusation, and 
hanged himself through remorse, when he saw Him con- 
demned. The Roman Governor, who "delivered Him 
to be crucified," appeared as a witness for His innocence, 
declaring — though consenting to His death — that " He 
had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His 
mouth.'" 

Before I proceed with the exposition of our text, I 



94 



LECTURE V. 



would call your attention to the greatness of Pilate's 
guilt ; and impress upon your minds, that his bearing 
testimony to our Redeemer's innocence, does by no means 
diminish the heavy guilt which he had incurred by his 
being accessory to His death. Indeed, so far as Pilate is 
concerned, it is very evident, that what makes him im- 
measurably guilty, is the consciousness, which he did 
not strive to hide, of the perfect innocence of Christ. 
Had the Boman Governor had his doubts, had he felt, 
that, though appearances were in favour of the Nazarene, 
there were circumstances with which His accusers were 
better conversant, and of which they were better judges 
than himself, and which might perhaps warrant His con- 
demnation, there would have been some extenuation in 
Pilate's favour, for his yielding to the clamours of the 
priests and the people. But not a syllable of the kind 
can be alleged. Pilate was as convinced and as certain 
of Christ's innocence as of his own existence : he had not 
the remotest suspicion that Jesus might be guilty of any- 
thing which deserved death ; and therefore, in suffering 
Him to be crucified, he sealed his own condemnation, 
and registered his own verdict as wilfully unjust ; having 
by his previous villainy and vices, and bad conduct, so 
placed himself in the power of the Chief Priests, Scribes, 
and Pharisees, that, in spite of the upbraiding of con- 
science, he must join them in carrying into effect their 
murderous design against the Holy and Just One. 

Having made these few preliminary remarks, we may 
now be able to enter fully into the spirit of our text. A 
text, which has embarrassed all commentators, philologists, 
and critics, and I must confess that it is my humble opin- 
ion, that a Christian Minister — without a good knowledge 
of the original text — may strive in vain to furnish his 
congregation with the full benefit of the instruction this 
chapter contains. 

This chapter, as I have already stated, is a hymn die- 



ISAIAH LIII. 



95 



tated by the Holy Spirit for Israel's future celebration, 
when 

" Their songs shall be of Jesus' love, 
Who left the ethereal courts above, 
To bear their guilt and shame." 

It is, therefore, peculiar in its diction and style, which are 
exceedingly lofty and sublime. The veil of the temple 
seems to have been drawn aside, though not yet rent 
asunder, and the brightness of redeeming love — which the 
"light of the world" has in fulness of time introduced 
into the dark world — shone forth with a more brilliant 
glory than it had ever appeared before to the son of Amoz 
in vision. With the aid of the original, therefore — which 
is the very best commentary of the Old Testament a Chris- 
tian minister can use, when expounding to his flock the 
word of life — I proceed to read our text in the most 
literal sense of the Hebrew, which runs thus : — 

" Without restraint, and without sentence was He taken away, 
And who can speak of His habitation ? 
But He was cut off from the land of the living, 
Because of the transgression of my people — 
Because of the stroke that should have been to them. 
And His grave was assigned with the wicked, 
But He was with a rich man after His death, 
Because He had done no violence, 
Neither was any deceit in His mouth. 
But the Lord was pleased in His being bruised, 

He put Him to grief. 
Verily, if He make Himself a sacrifice for sin, 
He shall see a seed, 
He shall prolong days, 

And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands." 

You perceive, of course, that our text, when translated 
strictly literally, conveys altogether different ideas from 



96 



LECTURE V. 



those suggested by reading the English version ; especially 
the first verse of our text. And I must confess, that 
that verse, as the authorized version has it, is enough to 
baffle any interpreter. In fact, there is not, perhaps, 
another verse in the whole Bible, which has been more 
variously rendered by Biblical expounders.* 

Now, it must have struck you — as it did me, on my reading 
for the first time the New Testament — that there is hardly 
a single sentence in the whole of this chapter, on which you 
do not find a comment, or a parallel to it, in the Gospel 
narrative. But you look in vain for a comment on, or a 
parallel to, the first verse of our text, according to the 
present English reading. The passage is indeed quoted 



* The first clause has been thus differently rendered by the follow- 
ing :— 

LXX. — 44 tv Trj TcnrtivuGti rj Kpiffig avrov f)p9r}." 

Syriac.—-^^ N3n -p ^aran p 

J onathan in his Targum. — ^mb3 yp> WY©m picn 

Jerome. — " De angustia, et dejudicio sublatus est." 

Doderlein, Dathe. — " Post angustias judicii ad supplicium rapitur." 

Zuinglius. — "Indicta causa citraque judicium toUetur.'' 

Leo Juda. — "Absque dilatione citraque judicium raptus est." 

Jewish Span. — " De detenimiento y de juizio fue tornado." 

Luzzatto. — " On l'emportait (on le tuait) sans autorite souveraine, 
et sans justice, c'est-a-dire : on pouvait le tuer impunement." 

Coverdale. — " He shall be had awaie, his cause not herd, and without 
any judgment." 

Noyes. — " By oppression and punishment He was taken away." 
Lowth, Tingstad, and Jones. — " By an oppressive judgment He was 
taken off." 

Barnes. — 44 From confinement and a judicial sentence was He taken 
away." 

Henderson. — 44 Without restraint and without a sentence He was 
taken away." 

The last seems to me the most correct, and I have adopted it ; but 
there are many more conflicting translations of this single sentence. 



ISAIAH LIU. 



9?" 



In the Acts of the Apostles, as being the place of scripture 
which was read by the Eunuch — who " had come to Jerusa- 
lem to worship.' 1 (Acts. 8. 26 — 33.) But, in the first place, 
I am inclined to think that it was the Hebrew Scripture 
which the Ethiopian read. Having gone "to Jerusalem 
for to worship," he must have managed to read it, though 
perhaps, without understanding it. Philip, therefore, 
fairly put the question to him, " Understandest thou what 
thou readest V St. Luke, however, writing for Gentiles, 
and relating therefore the circumstance in the Greek 
language, quotes verbatim the translation of the Septua- 
gint.* 

Again, in the second place, even as it is quoted in the 
New Testament, it does by no means lead us to suppose, 
that Jesus was in prison. He was indeed bound and placed 
under a guard, and was thus secured, but never incarcer- 
ated, as one would be inclined to conclude from the text, 
according to its present translation. Moreover, no 
judicial sentence ever passed upon Jesus. It was because 
of the excited and wicked populace demanding the death 
of Jesus, that Pilate impiously consented to it, and 
delivered Him to be crucified ; but not under any form of 
law, which the following expression implies : — 

" He was taken^froni prison and from judgment." 

But read the text according to the literal translation, and 
we find at once a comment on it in the Gospel history 



* We are thus deprived of the$briginal Hebrew of our Lord's first 
address to Paul. It was in the "Hebrew tongue " that he was warned 
against his prosecution, — in the words, " Saul, Saul, why persecutest 
thou me ? it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks." (Acts 26. 14 — 
18). As also of St. Paul's beautiful address to his brethren, which ob- 
tained great attention on account of its being delivered " in the Hebrew 
tongue." (Acts 22. 1—21). 



98 



LECTURE V 



of our Lord's suffering. We shall, therefore, now simply 
proceed to expound our text, line by line, according to the 
original. 

" Without* restraint, and without sentence was He taken away." 

Instead of preventing or restraining the J ews from carrying 
into effect their murderous purposes against our Lord, Pilate 
" delivered Him to their will." — Instead of pronouncing a 
formal sentence upon Him, the Governor, occupying the 
judgment seat, declares Him a "just man," and yet, " de- 
livers Him to be crucified." This is in perfect harmony with, 
or rather a continuation of, the preceding verse : — 
" Like the LAMB was He led to the slaughter,*' 

harmless, guiltless, and helpless, there being no one to 
remonstrate or prevent the Lamb's being slaughtered. 
God had ordained thus, and thus it was accomplished. 
The prophet proceeds to describe the melancholy and 
most pitiable condition of the King of kings at that 
critical moment. Not only did the Gentile judge not 
interfere in using his authority to prevent such a wicked 
and unprecedented perpetration, but also His brethren 
after the flesh forsook Him and denied Him; no one 
uttered a syllable in His defence as soon as He was taken 
to the judgment seat, which the Psalmist was instructed 
to describe — long ere the awful scene* happened. — " My 
lovers and my friends stand aloof from my sore ; and my 
kinsmen stand afar off. They also that seek after my 
life lay snares for me : and they that seek my hurt speak 
mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day long. 
But I, as a deaf man, heard fct ; and I was as a dumb 
man that openeth not his mouth." (Ps. 38. 11 — IS). He 
was thus, as it were, an outlaw ; He had no home, whose 



* The preposition p, or its abbreviation a has very often a nega- 
tive signification, as is well known to every Hebrew student. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



99 



inmates, who would certainly be His relations, might 
interfere at all hazards, on such a desperate occasion, 
to prevent His being put to death without a proper in- 
vestigation. But, 

" As for His dwelling place, who cau speak of it ?" 

The comment on this line you will find in Matt. 8. 20 : — ■ 
" The foxes' have holes, and the birds of the air have 
nests ; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His 
head." The same word which is rendered in our text 
"generation" occurs in Isaiah 38. 12, where it is rendered 
"age" as also in Ps. 49. 19, where it is rendered " gener- 
ation." But almost all philologists have properly sub- 
stituted in the two last places, " habitation" I am at a 
loss to account, why they did not substitute the same 
proper word in our text, especially as all acknowledge 
that it "is by no means easy to fix the right meaning" of 
the text as it reads at present, namely, 

" And who shall declare His generation ?" 

Whilst the literal translation, which I have suggested, 
removes all difficulties at once, and throws a great deal 
of light on the chapter before us.* 

" But He was cut off from the land of the living, 
On account of the transgression of my people, — 
On account of the stroke that should have come upon them." 



* The words in Isaiah 38. 12, are the following : — 

On which Eabbi David Kimchi, as well as Aben Ezra, remarks : 

: ^nn »D3 nn aVcfa nun '3 tttdn : to t^t i nun wmj : nn 

Lowth renders it : — " My habitation is taken away, and is removed 
from me, like a Shepherd's tent ;" which rendering has been adopted 



100 



LECTURE V. 



The converted Israelites rehearse, as it were, all the 
sufferings of their Messiah in their order, and take care to 
acknowledge after each species of suffering, that He 
suffered the Just for the unjust. In the verse now under 
review, they reach the culminating point in their descrip- 
tion of His sufferings, namely, the unjust death in which 
they terminated ; and calling to mind, as it were, Daniel's 
prediction, " And after three score and two weeks shall 
Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself," they immedi- 
ately add, 

" But He was cut off from the land of the living, 
On account of the transgression of my people, — 
On account of the stroke that should have come upon them." 



by Gesenius, Rosenmtiller ; and copied verbatim by Barnes. Hender- 
son translates it thus ; 

" My habitation is plucked up, and removed from me, 
Like the tent of a Shepherd." 
The words in Psalm 49. 19, are, 

Upon which Mendelshon in his observes, 

:rfan 2dd n-n jncto ' nun ran "in dstqi 
Dr. Julius Furst, one of the most learned Hebrew philologists of the 
day, says, 

-apn win vmns tm 

One can well understand why the Jewish theologians did not render 
mi in Isaiah 53. 8, "habitation" Their object was wilfully to mis- 
interpret the whole of the chapter, and finding a passage in the New 
Testament (Matt. 8. 20.) so strikingly explanatory of it, they would 
naturally conceal its real meaning, and do as they have done with 
many more passages in their own Scripture, sacrifice their philology 
to their prejudices. But how Christian divines, who wrote on Biblical 
criticism, and Hebrew Poetry, and who attempted to recover " Pro- 
phecies respecting the divinity of our Lord, from the corruption of the 
Jews," &c. (See p. 45), should overlook such an important expression, 
one is at a loss to understand. It is to be regretted that Christian 
divines are not better acquainted with Hebrew learning. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



101 



The word rendered in the authorised version " For? 
should have been " But? as in 1 Sam. 10. 19 ; or "Truly? 
as in Joshua 2. 24; or "Surely? as in Ruth 1. 10. 

I will only add in reference to this verse, that its mis- 
understanding created endless controversies amongst J ews 
and Christians. The former, who were supported by Soci- 
nians and Rationalists, contended that this chapter cannot 
refer to a single individual^ and therefore not to Christ, 
because they translated the last line simply " They were 
stricken supposing it to refer to some collective body as 
the sufferers, either the people or the prophets. The 
Christians again, on the authority of the Syriac version 
and Jerome's, translate it as in the English version, " He 
was stricken.*' 1 Now I am free to confess, that there is not 
sufficient ground for considering the pronoun to be singu- 
lar ; on the contrary, I admit that it is a plural pronoun, 
but the admission does not afford either the J ews or the 
Socinians and Rationalists the least shadow of evidence 
that the object of this chapter is any collective body. 
They seem either intentionally or really not to know 
the peculiarity of Hebrew Poetry, of which the verse 
before us is one of the finest and most sublime specimens. 
And the only correct translation, I venture to say, as a 
Hebrew of the Hebrews, is the one I have given of it, 
namely, 

" On account of the stroke that should have come upon them,*'* 



* It is a well known fact to all Hebrew Scholars, that in Hebrew 
Poetry, whose beauty is very much enhanced by the parallelisms, 
where the same preposition should be employed in both members, it 
is generally omitted in the second, which gives a peculiar elegance to 
the verse ; as for instance in Job 12. 12, 



102 



LECTURE V. 



which puts an end to all the difficulties which Christians 
fancied, and to all the objections unbelievers urged. It 
convinces us more than ever of the redeeming love of our 
Saviour Christ ; it convinces us that all that He did, 



where the preposition a is omitted in the second member ; but it is 
of very frequent occurrence with the Q , of which I will give a few 
examples. In Gen. 49. 25, we have a specimen of this kind in the 
following : — 

twi tin ban 

Many specimens of this kind are found in the book of the Prophet 
Isaiah, besides the one which has been considered above, and of which 
I will mention one, viz. Is. 30. 1. 

'an vb\ ns» nwsh 

Which Aben Ezra Kimchi and Mendelshon call, 

tins "irofl iD2» moo 
And accordingly, the last Q is omitted in Isaiah 53. 8. Jewish theo- 
logians would not see, it appears, the peculiarity, and Christian divines 
could not see it in consequence of their defective knowledge of 
Hebrew literature. I shall, therefore, put down the Hebrew of that 
verse, as it should be read, and humbly invite the consideration of all 
Hebrew Scholars to it. 

to"? moxscn "c»n 
nrnc »q twi n«i 

j»:(n) 

This verse is unrivalled in elegance in the whole of Isaiah's writings. 

Gesenius seems to have been a great Hebrew Scholar in theory, but 
was not able to put his own theory into practice. The following are 
his own words in his Lehrgebaude, p. 838. 

" Im poetischen Parallelismus wird nicht selten eine Praeposition, die 
im ersten Gliede ausgedrilclct worden, im zweyten dann ausgelasen und 
hinzugedacht." 

Why did not Gesenius apply the rule he taught to the above verse ? 
But Gesenius was a Rationalist, and unwilling to believe that this* 



ISATAII LIII. 



103 



and all that He endured, from the hour that He wept a 
helpless babe in Bethlehem, till the hour that He ex- 
claimed on Calvary, "It is finished, 11 was done and en- 
dured, that salvation might be wrought out for guilty men. 
Oh, what a magnificence does it give to the work of our 
redemption, that for its achievement God, in our nature 
had thus to travel in the greatness of His strength ! 
Great must have been the work, that required "Immanuel, 



chapter referred to Jesus of Nazareth. He applied it to a ein Collect- 
ivun der Propheten" and worked himself into a belief that the plural 
form of the pronoun warrants such an application ; he was there- 
fore, easily satisfied with the construction put upon it by his pre- 
decessor Rosenmuller. Had he but applied his own rule above referred 
to, when reading the verse under review, he would have had no cioke 
for his infidelity. This mistake of the great Gesenius should convince 
the heads of the Universities, that grammatical rules only will never 
give any one a good idea of the genius of the language. This is 
mentioned, because of the supposed encouragement which is given to 
Hebrew learning, by offering premiums for the best answers in Hebrew 
Grammar, and the first 8 or 12 Psalms. The latter are frequently 
learnt off by heart for the examination, from " Bythner's Lyra Pro- 
phetiea." It is certain, that so long as the Hebrew Bible does not 
become a class book in the Universities, and as long as the Bishops do 
not insist on a competent knowledge of Hebrew from candidates for 
Holy orders, so long will Biblical knowledge be at a low ebb amongst 
Christian divines. It is idle to say, that so many books have been 
written by distinguished Hebrew Scholars, and they have explained 
every text in the Bible so well, that their works might supply the 
deficiency of the young minister. This is contrary to fact, and the 
verse under review bears witness to the fallacy of such a supposition. 
Neither Vitringa, nor Walton, nor Lightfoot, nor Whitby, nor Lowth, 
nor Horsley, &c. have thrown any light on it. It is the original Hebrew 
alone which explains itself, and therefore a good knowledge of the 
sacred language is indispensable to every Christian minister especially. 
For, surely, he who undertakes to explain to others God's revelation, 
ought thoroughly to understand, without the medium of an interpre- 
ter, the terms in which that revelation is conveyed. 



104 



LECTURE V. 



God with us, 1 ' to undergo the malignity of a conflict 
so severe ; overwhelming the weight of that wrath, which 
none but He could bear ; inconceivable the malignity of 
sin, when the blood of God's own Son was the only chan- 
nel through which pardon could flow to the sinner ; fearful 
the breach between man and his Maker, when none but 
He could effect their reconciliation ; and not one an- 
nouncement of pardon could have reached our desolate 
world, had not He who was God's fellow and equal bowed 
His head to the sacrifice, and poured out His soul unto 
the death. 

We proceed now with our consideration of the ninth 
verse of this most extraordinary chapter. 

" And His grave was assigned Him with the wicked,* 
But He was with a rich man after His death."f 

The predictions which relate to Christ, the Lamb of God — 
the chief corner stone — the Builder and Founder of the 
Christian Church — are so numerous, and so minute, in 
this chapter — as well as in other parts of God's word — 
that they could not possibly have been dictated by any, 
but by Him, to whom all things are naked and open, and 
who worketh all things after the counsel of His own will. 
The most insignificant circumstances of our Lord's death, 
are pointed out with as much accuracy as those which 
were most important. If we reflect but for a moment 
on the peculiar circumstances which attended our Saviour's 
last hours, we shall have reason to exclaim with Moses of 



* The Hebrew word jrn is used here, as it is very frequently in 
other parts of scripture, impersonally, as in the German Man gab, or 
in the French, On avait ordonne. 

f The preposition 2 has the same signification here, as it has in 
Dnm> Lev. 11. 31; as also in ran? 1 Kings 13. 13; and as in rnm> 
Esther 2. 7 ; and in many other places. 



ISAIAH LITI. 



105 



old, " The secret things belong unto the Lord our God." 
(Deut. 29. 29). Or with St. Paul, " O the depth of the 
riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God ! how un- 
searchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding 
out ! For who hath known the mind of the Lord ? or 
who hath been His counsellor I or who hath first given to 
Him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again i For 
of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things : 
to whom be glory for ever. Amen." (Eom. 11. 33 — 36). 
What could be more unlikely than that Jesus should be 
crucified, when crucifixion was not a Jeioish but a Roman 
punishment ? and yet David predicted that such would be 
the case centuries before Rome was founded. 

Again : The fulfilment of David's prediction was so 
brought about, by the Jews themselves, contrary to their 
own law and tradition. The law expressly forbade them 
to take a heathen as their king, for the following are 
the words of their Master Moses, whose disciples they 
averred they were : " When thou art come unto the land 
which the Lord thy God giveth thee, and shalt possess it, 
and shalt dwell therein, and shalt say, I will set a king 
over me, like as all the nations that are about me : Thou 
shalt in any wise set him king over thee, whom the Lord 
thy God shall choose : one from among thy brethren shalt 
thou set king over thee ; thou mayest not set a stranger 
over thee, which is not thy brother." (Deut. 17. 14, 15). 
The Jewish tradition again pronounced the most severe 
anathema against any and every one who should deliver 
a Jew to a heathen magistrate. But in this case, that 
the word of God may come to pass, they regard neither 
law nor tradition, but deliver Jesus to the judgment of 
Pilate, and call upon him to pronounce sentence. After 
this remarkable fulfilment of an extraordinary prophecy, 
that He was really put to death according to the Roman 
law, what could be more unlikely, than that, if He were 

p 



106 



LECTURE V. 



crucified, He should not have His legs broken, when such 
was the usual way of hastening the end of those, who 
were crucified, and they who were crucified with Jesus, 
were actually so treated ? But thus said the Lord of 
Hosts, " For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from 
heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, 
and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed 
to the sower, and bread to the eater : so shall my word be 
that goeth forth out of my mouth : it shall not return 
unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, 
and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." (Is. 55. 
10, 11). His servant Moses foretold 15 centuries before, 
that " a bone of Him should not be broken.'' 

What more insignificant, than that the soldiers should 
'part His garment, but cast lots for His vesture ? yet that, 
with a great number of other incidents equally minute, 
was circumstantially predicted. 

" His grave was assigned with the wicked, 
But He was with a rich man after His death." 

Oh, how strikingly was the above fulfilled— to the very 
letter — in Jesus of Nazareth ! The Jews, though they 
reached the culminating point of their great wickedness, 
and filled up the measure of their sin, by the unjust death 
to which they put the Lord of Glory — unjust, not only in 
the sight of the omniscient God, but also in the sight of 
men, as we have already shown ; yet they were not satis- 
fied with His cross and passion, but having accused Him 
of blasphemy, they would adhere to it to the last, and 
accordingly destined Him to have the ignoble interment 
of blasphemers ; in accordance with the Jewish law, as 
it is recorded by the Jewish historian, Josephus, "He 
that blasphemeth God, let Him be stoned, and let him 
hang upon a tree all that day, and then let him be buried 



ISAIAH LIU, 



107 



in an ignominious and obscure manner.''* But Jehovah 
always manifested most palpably that Jesus was innocent, 
that He was holy and just ; and though He took upon 
Himself all the sins of a wicked world, and bare them in 
His own body on the tree, and endured all the penalty 
merited by the sins of a world lying in wickedness ; yet 
He Himself had done no violence, neither was any deceit 
in His mouth. And when J esus had drunk the vinegar, 
be it recollected, that He cried out, " It is finished,' 1 so 
that His adversaries could do nothing more. He had made 
on the cross a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the 
sins of the whole world ; and as soon as they nailed Him 
to the accursed tree, they had done all they were permitted 
to do — and God the Father immediately interposed, not 
allowing them any mastery whatever over the body of the 
sacrifice, which belonged " w T holly to the Lord;' 1 and He 
therefore appointed one to take charge of the same, which 
He also foretold ; and accordingly we read : " When the 
even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, 
named J oseph, who also himself was Jesus 1 disciple : he 
went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then 
Pilate commanded the body to be delivered. And when 
Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen 
cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn 
out in the rock : and he rolled a great stone to the door 
of the sepulchre, and departed. 11 (Mat. 27. 57—60). For 
it was decreed not only that His burial should not be 
" ignominious and obscure, 1 ' but that it should be an 
honourable one ; as it was predetermined by the divine 
counsel of the Almighty, in the words of our text, that 
He was to be " with a rich man after His death ;" which 
furnished another striking attestation, that Messiah was cut 
off, " but not for Himself, 11 which also tended to convince 



* Antiquities, L. 4. c. 8. 6. 



108 



LECTURE V. 



His murderers, that they were fighting against God, in 
assigning His grave with the wicked. 

" Because He had done no violence,* 
Neither was any deceit found in His mouth," 

He was neither a malefactor nor a blasphemer ; He was 
neither guilty of murder and robbery, — as those male- 
factors on His right and left, or as Barabbas ; — nor of 
blasphemy, of which the Jews accused Him — as the word 
of the living God foretold, seven centuries before, 

" Because He had done no violence, 
Neither was any deceit found in His mouth." 

What a powerful proof is the interment of Jesus to the 
inspiration of the Scriptures, as also to the correctness 
of the Apostles in referring the chapter before us, to 
Christ and to Christ only. How could a false prophet, 
seven hundred years before the event occurred, conjecture 
of one who was to be executed as a malefactor, and with 
malefactors, and who would in the ordinary course of 
events, be buried with malefactors ; how could an impos- 
tor venture to conjecture that he would be rescued from 
such an ignominious burial by the interposition of a rich 
man, and buried in a grave designed for a man of affluence, 
and in the manner in which the wealthy are buried \ And 
in whom was such an apparently contradictory prophecy 
accomplished, but in Jesus of Nazareth, who announced 
Himself as the " Servant of the Lord," the " Saviour of 
the world," the Eternal Son of the Eternal Father, the 



* Bishop Lowth had no reason whatever to substitute "Although" 1 ' 
for "Because? nor was Barnes, who adopted the Bishop's translation 
of the word correct in saying that " the sense here demands that 
interpretation." 



ISAIAH LIII. 



109 



Hedeeiner who came " to Zion and unto them that turn 
from transgression in Jacob," (Is. 59. 20) ; the Deliverer 
who will come again out of Sion, " and shall turn away 
ungodliness from Jacob. 1 ' (Rom. 11. 26), Let the un- 
believing Jew only think and reflect for a little while on 
the interment of Jesus of Nazareth, and then be asked 
the reason why did this happen, and he will be obliged to 
account for it in the words of our text : — 

" Because He had done no violence, 
Neither was any deceit found in His mouth." 

The Jew knows well enough that the Lord Himself or- 
dered a despicable burial to the wicked, (Jer= 22. 19, &c.) 
and as a matter of course, it would have been supposed, 
since He was put to death with wicked men, that He would 
naturally have been buried with them ; but instead of that, 
His dead body was buried with the greatest respect ; it 
was wound up in a clean linen cloth, and laid in a new 
tomb, a tomb hewn out in a rock ; such as a rich man 
would use ; and where it was designed that a rich man 
should be laid ; and moreover He was buried with spices ; 
His body was embalmed with a large quantity of myrrh 
and aloes, " about a hundred pounds weight," in the mode 
in which the rich and honourable are usually buried. Let 
the Jew but think for a moment, let him but spend a 
moment's gaze on the cross of Calvary, and behold Jesus 
crucified with a malefactor on His right hand, and another 
on His left ; and that no sooner did He give up the Ghost, 
than He was "with a rich man;" and the Jew will be 
obliged to exclaim, " Truly ! Jesus was the very person 
of whom our Prophet Daniel spoke, ' And after three 
score and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for 
Himself.' " 

We shall now briefly proceed with the consideration of 
the last verse of our text. 



110 



LECTURE V. 



" But the Lord was pleased in His being bruised, 
He put Him to grief. 

Verily, if He make Himself a sacrifice for sin, 
He shall see a seed, 
He shall prolong days, 

And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands." 

Hitherto the prophet dwelt minutely on the sufferings of 
Christ exclusively ; but from this verse commences the 
prediction respecting His ultimate glory and triumph. 
In the beginning of the verse, however, Isaiah provides 
us with an answer to an objection, which has been often 
raised "against the satisfaction of Christ," namely, "that 
the doctrine of His being appointed to suffer for the sins 
of the world, represents God as being indifferent whether 
He punished the innocent or the guilty." The most 
learned Bishop Butler.,* in his own peculiar way of reason- 
ing, shews " the extreme slightness of all such objection," 
and justly remarks, that " all who make them do not see 
the consequence." But the prophet teaches us the doc- 
trine of our Lord's voluntary substitution of Himself as a 
victim to expiate human guilt, which sets completely at 
nought such an objection. Whatever man may have had 
to do with the death of Jesus of Nazareth, it was, never- 
theless, the result of the gracious purpose of God, as we 
have shewn in the preceding discourse on the same chap- 
ter. St. Peter's first sermon after the outpouring of the 
Holy Ghost was to the same effect, " Ye men of Israel, 
hear these words ; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of 
God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which 
God did by Him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also 
know : Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel 
and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked 



* Analogy of Religion, &c. Part 2. chap. 5. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



Ill 



hands have crucified and slain," (Acts 2. 22, 23), calling to 
their minds, as it were, the doctrine of the chapter before 
us. Read carefully St. Peter's discourses and epistles, 
and I doubt not but that you will be struck with the 
many direct and indirect allusions to the 5.3rd chapter of 
Isaiah.* 

Jehovah was pleased at Messiah's " being bruised not 
because the all merciful God has the least pleasure in wretch- 
edness and misery, or delights in oppression. But it was be- 
cause the Son of God " made Himself of no reputation, and 
humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death. 1 ' He 
had voluntarily submitted Himself to those sorrows which 
were necessary to shew the evil of sin ; and in view of the 
great object to be gained, namely, the eternal redemption 
of His chosen. The Father was pleased, therefore, that 
the Son would subject Himself to such great sorrows in 
order that His creatures, the work of His hands, might 
be saved. Again, He was pleased, because these suffer- 
ings would tend to illustrate the divine perfections, and 
display the justice and mercy of God. The gift of a 
Saviour, such as Jesus was, evinced boundless benevolence; 
His sufferings in behalf of the guilty shewed the holiness 
of His nature and law ; and demonstrated that He was at 
the same time disposed to save, and yet resolved that 
no one should be saved by dishonouring His law, or without 
expiation for the evil which had been done by sin. It 
must be confessed, however, that ere Jesus took upon 
Himself the curse of the law, God's justice was made 
known unto the children of men, in the boldest and most 
unqualified language, as in the following places : — " Thou 
shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them : for 
I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity 



* See Appendix J. 



112 



LECTURE V. 



of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth 
generation of them that hate me." " Keeping mercy for 
thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, 
and that will by no means clear the guilty ; visiting the 
iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the 
children's children, unto the third and to the fourth gene- 
ration." " For thou shalt worship no other God : for the 
Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God." (Exod. 
20. 5; 34. 7, 14). "For the Lord thy God is a con- 
suming fire, even a jealous God. 1 ' " (For the Lord thy 
God is a jealous God among you) lest the anger of the 
Lord thy God be kindled against thee, and destroy thee 
from off the face of the earth.." (Deut. 4. 24; 6. 15). 
" And Joshua said unto the people, ye cannot serve the 
Lord : for He is an holy God ; He is a jealous God ; He 
will not forgive your transgressions nor your sins." (Josh. 
24. 19). " God is jealous and the Lord revengeth : the 
Lord revengeth, and is furious ; the Lord will take ven- 
geance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His 
enemies. The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power, 
and will not at all acquit the wicked ; the Lord hath His 
way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are 
the dust of His feet." (Nahum 1. 2, 3). All which 
declarations tell us that God's attribute of justice can 
overlook no iota of offence, and dispense with no tittle of 
punishment. Yet, had we been left without a practical 
exhibition of the workings of His justice, we should have 
been inclined to limit and restrict the meaning of the 
passages just quoted. We should in all probability reason 
from human enactments to divine, and finding that the 
former are almost always far more severe in the threatening 
than in the exaction, we might have concluded that the 
latter might, ultimately, exhibit the like inequality. But 
now, should such an unholy thought obtrude itself into 
the chambers of our souls, we go at once to the cross of 



ISAIAH LIII. 



113 



Christ. We gaze on the illustrious and mysterious victim, 
stooping beneath the amazing burden of human transgres- 
sion. We then put the question to ourselves, whether the 
agonies and bloody sweat of the garden, and the terrors 
of the cross, and passion of the man Christ Jesus, furnish 
not a sufficiently thrilling demonstration, that God's jus- 
tice, when it takes in hand the exaction of punishment, 
does the work thoroughly ; and that God's ways and 
thoughts are not as man's, for God's justice is as strict in 
its works as it is stern in its words. In the same way 
correct and practical views of the truths of God's mercy, 
God's faithulness, God's holiness, and God's wisdom, are 
only to be obtained from the consideration that J esus the 
Son of God " having been pierced on account of our 
transgression, having been bruised on account of our 
iniquities, our entire chastisement was put upon Him." 
Jehovah was pleased, therefore, that all His holy attri- 
butes are vindicated by the dying love of His well beloved 
Son. 

Once more : He was pleased, because these sorrows 
would result in the pardon and recovery of an innumerable 
multitude of lost sinners, and in their eternal happiness 
and salvation. The whole work was one of amazing love. No 
wonder, therefore, that God, the fountain of love and mercy 
should look with complacency and delight on such an act of 
immeasurable loving kindness. Yes, God the Father helped 
forward, if I may so express my self , the afflictions of the 
Holy sufferer. " He put Him to grief." Who can ven- 
ture to describe the bitter grief which the Eternal Son of 
God, who was in the bosom of the Father from all eternity, 
and who was moreover one with the Father felt, when He 
was at last abandoned by that Father, which drew from 
His soul the most pathetic and heart-rending appeal : — 

"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." 

Q 



114 



LECTURE Y. 



I say who dare even attempt to describe the awful grief 
to which Jesus must have been put, when the Father left 
Him to Himself — the second person in the Holy and 
glorious Trinity, who spake thus of Himself under His 
name of Wisdom. " The Lord possessed me in the begin- 
ning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up 
from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth 
was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth ; 
when there were no fountains abounding with water. 
Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was 
I brought forth : while as yet He had not made the earth, 
nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of the 
world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there : 
when He set a compass upon the face of the depth : when 
He established the clouds above : when He strengthened 
the fountains of the deep : when He gave to the sea His 
decree, that the waters should not pass His commandment: 
when He appointed the foundations of the earth : then 
I was by Bim, as one brought up with Him : and I was 
daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him."' 1 (Prov. 
8. 22 — 80). And when He clothed Himself in humanity, 
though He plainly taught His disciples that " He and His 
Father were one," He was left to Himself on the cross between 
two malefactors, and insulted by a wicked mob, who mocked 
Him saying, " He trusted on the Lord that He would 
deliver Him : let Him deliver Him, seeing He delighted in 
Him:' (Ps. 22. 8). Yes, the Father Himself "put Him 
to grief," that the vials of wrath, which our sins had in- 
curred, should not be spoiled of any of their scalding 
drops, ere emptied on the surety of our alienated tribes. 
Well might the angels — who vail their faces in His pre- 
sence — draw back confounded, and the heavens, which were 
created by Him, be darkened, and the earth, which was 
consecrated by His hallowed footsteps, reel at that awfully 
mysterious spectacle. But it was on the cross that all was 



ISAIAH LIII. 



115 



finished, that all that was written concerning Him was 
fulfilled, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice was then 
made, and a door of restoration to the favour of God for 
the children of Adam opened. Jehovah was, therefore, 
pleased at the sufferings of His Son, which would only last 
for a moment, but which would terminate in the salvation 
of millions ; yea, He even " put Him to grief," in order 
that He might gather His scattered sheep into His fold 
again ; and encompass them with everlasting happiness, for 
which He created them. 

Christ having thus accomplished the conditions of the 
agreement which existed from all eternity between the 
Father and Himself ; the prophet with singular harmony 
directs our attention to the consequences of His obedi- 
ence, which are the following : — 

" Yerily, if He make Himself a sacrifice for sin, 
He shall see a seed, 
He shall prolong days, 

And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand." 

I would first observe that the Hebrew word DM, which is 
simply translated in the English version if, is by no means 
to be taken here as a particle of doubt ; on the contrary it 
expresses the certainty of what is affirmed. It was justly 
remarked by one of the most learned critics of the day that, 
" In such cases has all the native force of its derivation 
from which convey the idea o% firmness, security, certain- 
ty" &c* I consider, therefore, his rendering the most cor- 
rect one, and have accordingly preferred it to the rendering 
in the common version.-)- The idea seems to be this : since 
the Eternal Son has accomplished the conditions of the 
agreement on His part, namely the taking upon Himself 



* Henderson in loco. 



t See Appendix K. 



116 



LECTURE. V. 



our nature, submitting to the stern curse of the law, man's 
desert, and died an accursed death in man's stead ; in 
short, since He made Himself a sin offering, that sinful 
man may be pardoned ; I say, since He had finished all 
the conditions of the compact on His part, as a matter of 
course, He must realize the promises covenanted by God 
the Father, of which the following are but few in number. 
44 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine 
inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy 
possession." " A seed shall serve Him ; it shall be ac- 
counted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, 
and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that 
shall be born, that He hath done this." " He shall have 
dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the 
ends of the earth. His name shall endure for ever : His 
name shall be continued as long as the sun : and men shall 
be blessed in Him : all nations shall call Him blessed." 
(Ps. 2. 8 ; 22. 30, 31 ; 72. 8, 17). " And he said, It is 
a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up 
the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel : 
I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou 
mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." (Is. 
49. 6). Christ hath regularly purchased all those He 
redeemed, with His most precious blood ; and as St. Paul 
most explicitly declares, " Wherefore God also hath highly 
exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every 
name : that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, 
of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under 
the earth. ,, (Phil. 2. 9, 10). A vastly glorious theme, such 
wondrous grace to record ! It might well inspire the celestial 
harps of the cherubim and seraphim. Well might even the 
four and twenty elders surrounding the white throne, with 
their golden crowns on their heads, fall down before Him, and 
chant the new song, " saying, Thou art worthy to take the 
book, and to open the seals thereof : for thou wast slain. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



317 



and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every 
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation ; and hast 
made us unto our God kings and priests : and we shall 
reign on the earth." (Rev. 5. 9, 10). 

" Verily, if He make Himself a sacrifice for sin, 
He shall see a seed, 
He shall prolong days," 

Who else could the person, spoken of in these words, 
be but J esus of Nazareth I There is an inspired commen- 
tary on these in the ancient writings of the Hebrews, 
as found in the New Testament. Our Lord Himself, 
when exhorting His disciples to humility, says, "Even 
as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister, and to give His life a ransom for many." (Matt. 
20. 28). St. Paul, in addressing the Christians in Galatia, 
speaks of Jesus after this manner : " Who gave Himself 
for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present 
evil world, according to the will of God and our Father." 
(Gal. 1. 4). When the same Apostle exhorts the believers 
in Ephesus to love one another, he holds up Jesus as their 
great examplar : " Be ye therefore followers of God, as 
dear children ; and walk in love, as Christ also hath loved 
us, and hath given Himself for us an offering and a sacri- 
fice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." (Eph. 5. 1, 2). 
And when pointing out to the Hebrew Christians, the 
superiority of the Gospel dispensation to that of the Levi- 
lical, he concludes his argument thus : — "How much more 
shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit 
offered Himself without spot to God, purge your conscience 
from dead works to serve the living God?" (Heb. 9. 14). 
No one can help acknowledging that the passages, just 
quoted from the New Testament, are strikingly explana- 
tory of the first clause of those under review, and also 



118 



LECTURE V. 



teach us in the very plainest terms the doctrine — already 
referred to — of our Lord's voluntary substitution of Him- 
self as a sacrifice to expiate human guilt. No less ex- 
plicitly is the second clause illustrated both in the Gospel 
narrative and in the Epistolary doctrines. 

" He shall see a seed," evidently means the true Church 
of Christ, or all faithful believers in His Holy name, who 
are born again through the instrumentality of His 
Gospel ; for we are informed in the Gospel according to 
St. John, that " as many as received Him. to them gave 
He power to become the sons of God, even to them that 
believe on His name : which were born, not of blood, nor 
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man. but of 
God." (John 1.12, 13). And to this agree the words of 
Peter and James : "Of His own will begat He us with 
the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits 
of His creatures." (James 1. 18). " Seeing ye have puri- 
fied your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit 
unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one 
another with a pure heart fervently : being born again, 
not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word 
of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." (1 Peter 1. 
22, 23). When the beloved disciple, therefore, dwells 
upon the influence of a Saviour's love, in yielding us the 
fruition of that more than earthly luxury — the luxury 
of loving others as ourselves — he speaks after the following 
manner : " Behold, what manner of love the Father hath 
bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of 
God : therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew 
Him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it 
doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know that 
when He shall appear, we shall be like Him ; for we shall 
see Him as He is. And every man that hath this hope 
in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." (1 John. 3. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



119 



1 — 3). Christians are, therefore, designated in the East, 
by the beautiful epithet rTOD^N itih'O Milad Almaslieech, 
"The family of the Messiah." 

This expression is full of the sweetest consolation to 
God's children, whom He " ordained to everlasting life," 
and whom the Son of God purchased with His most 
precious blood. 

The expression, " He shall prolong days," evidently 
refers to the humanity of our Lord, to which the Son of 
God — by the mysterious coalition of the Godhead and 
Manhood — imparted immortality ; and to this agree the 
words of our Lord to His beloved disciple, " Fear not, I 
am the first and the last : I am He that liveth, and was 
dead ; and behold I am alive for evermore. Amen." The 
Hebrew commentators generally interpret the words ' length 
of days? to mean eternal life. Thus is the 4th verse of the 
21st Psalm translated by Jonathan in his Targum,* and on 
which passage a later Jewish commentator observes, " He 
asked life of Thee, i. e. that Thou wouldest prolong His 
life in this world. Length of days for ever and ever, means 
the life of the world to come."-f The Psalm referred to 
is considered by almost all Jewish commentators to refer 
to the Messiah. § I will only mention one passage more 



: friM rbsh won vera rrb nmrr yo hxw writt * 
: Kin drsffn *n -in dt# tyin i rrm nrsh crcy V: ^pp *pa bo® em t 
Rabbi David Kimchi in loco. See also Mendelskon's 071 tl ie last verse 
of the 23i-d Psalm. 

: ntt7 prr nod "pprrsn njtojd yo 'in* 1 y&sz * § 
Jonathan's Targum on the 1st verse of Psalm 21. Rabbi Solomon Jarchi 
candidly confesses respecting this Psalm 

rrcon nta is lrrnna iyncn 
but adds according to his usual mode of treating scripture referring to 
Christ, 



120 



LECTURE V, 



from the Book of Psalms, in illustration of the clause 
under review, namely the 17th verse of the 72nd Psalm. 
" His name shall endure for ever : His name shall be con- 
tinued as long as the sun : and men shall be blessed in 
Him : all nations shall call Him blessed."" This Psalm 
also has almost the unanimous concurrence of the ancient 
Hebrew writers, as referring to the King Messiah.* 

The objections raised by the Jews and Socinians against 
the doctrines of Christianity — which they fancy the 10th 
verse of the 53rd chapter of Isaiah furnishes them with 
— are not at all formidable, nor do they display much 
knowledge or candour on the part of those who made 
them. This is neither the time nor the place to examine 
them. They have been investigated and ably refuted by 
Archbishop Magee, and by the learned Dr. M'Caul.-f- 

As for ourselves, we have a cloud of witnesses that this 
verse refers to Christ the Lord, and is in perfect and beautiful 
harmony with the whole chapter, and with other parts of 
Holy Writ. It is the same thing Daniel beheld, as he 
himself told us. " I saw in the night-visions, and, behold, 
one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, 
and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought Him 
near before Him. And there was given Him dominion, 
and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and 
languages, should serve Him : His dominion is an ever- 
lasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His king- 
dom that which shall not be destroyed." (Dan. 7. 13, 14). 
It is the same thing in which Nathan instructed David. 
" He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish 
the throne of His kingdom for ever. But my mercy shall 
not depart away from Him, as I took it from Saul, whom 



* Jonathan on the first verse has it, 

f See Appendix L. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



121 



I put away before thee. And thine house and thy king- 
dom shall be established for ever before Thee : Thy throne 
shall be established for ever." (2 Sam. 7. 13, 15, 16). 
The same strain is heard from the chords swept by the 
sweet singer of Israel. " The Lord said unto my Lord, sit 
Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy 
footstool. The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, 
Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedec.' 1 
(Ps. 110. 1, 4). We believe in the truth of all these 
passages, and many more referring to the same glorious 
theme ; and we behold, therefore, by faith, with St. 
Stephen, " the heavens open, and the Son of Man stand- 
ing on the right hand of God." Yes, all this we believe, 
on the authority of God's Holy Word, and believing we 
rejoice ; for it is the Christian's blessed privilege to an- 
ticipate to reign with his Master for ever and ever ; for 
believers in Christ are to be like Christ Himself. 

Our text concludes with a brief but emphatic reference 
to the eternal purpose of Jehovah, which the Son of God 
would effect : namely, 

" And the pleasure of JEHOVAH shall prosper in His hands." 

It was God the Father's good pleasure to make man in 
His own image, after His own likeness, that the creature 
might be capable of holding converse with the Creator, 
and so pleased was He with the work of His hands, after 
man was created, that when He reviewed His glorious 
creation on the sixth day, He pronounced it " VERY 
GOOD. 11 But alas ! the creature soon apostatised, and 
was induced by the wiles of the old Serpent to break the 
divine precept of his Maker — a precept evidently given for 
the creature's happiness — and the Creator, who is holy and 
just, 4i drove out the man " from His presence. But His 
purpose remained unchanged, and whilst He is untainted 
in His holiness, unbending in His justice, unchanging in 

R 



12% 



LECTURE V, 



His truth, He is also abundant in mercy and compassion ; 
and His chief delight became then to save sinners. " He hath 
sworn and will »ot repent, that He has no pleasure in the 
death of the wicked, but rather that he should turn from 
his wickedness and live. 1 ' " For the Lord will not cast 
off for ever : but though He cause grief, yet will He have 
compassion according to the multitude of His mercies. 
For He doth not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of 
men.' 1 (Lamen. 3. 31, 32, 33). He did accordingly " de- 
vise means that His banished be not expelled from Him. 11 
{2 Sam. 14. 14). And for the accomplishment of His will 
towards the human race, He entered into a covenant with 
His well beloved Son. The latter taking upon Himself 
man's guilt, and submitting to the utmost rigour of the 
penalty, He restored as many as believe in His name, and 
avail themselves of the redemption offered for them, to 
the favour of the Almighty, and enabled them once more 
to hold communion with their heavenly Father, for which 
purpose He created them ; and thus does " the pleasure ' 
of the Lord prosper in His hands.' 1 " For this is good 
and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour ; who will 
have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge 
of the truth. For there is one God, and one mediator 
between God and men, the man Christ J esus ; who gave 
Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time.' 1 
(1 Tim. 3—6). When the Son of God exhorts His dis- 
ciples to set their affections on the things above and not 
on the things beneath, He beautifully alludes to His 
Father's eternal pleasure. The following are His sweet 
consoling words : " But rather seek ye the kingdom of 
God ; and all these things shall be added unto you. Fear 
not, little flock ; for it is your Father's good pleasure to 
give you the kingdom. 1 ' (St. Luke 12. 31, 32). St. Paul, 
with his usual powerful demonstration, alluded to it in 
his Epistle to the Ephesians, " Having predestinated us 



ISAIAH LIII. 



12S 



unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, 
according to the good pleasure of His will." (Ephes. 1 . 5), 
And in accordance with this demonstration, he couched 
his petition in behalf of the Thessalonians. " Wherefore 
also we pray always for you, that our God would count 
you worthy of this calling, and fulfil all the good pleasure 
of His goodness, and the work of faith with power : that 
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in 
you, and ye in Him, according to the grace of our God 
and the Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thes. 1 . 11, 12). Glorious 
things are spoken of God's people. " The Lord taketh 
pleasure in them that fear Him :" 4 ' The Lord taketh 
pleasure in His people," are the repeated declarations in 
His Holy Word. Oh ! dearly beloved, lift up your hearts to 
God, and pray earnestly, fervently, and unceasingly, that 
He would count each and every one of you worthy of His 
calling, and fulfil in you all the good pleasure of His good- 
ness, and the work of faith with power. It must be by 
faith in the Son of God alone, that we can be counted 
worthy of God's calling. For all declarations respecting 
man's redemption and restoration to God's favour, are in- 
dissolubly connected with Christ, in every respect. The 
fact is, that the whole creation sprung into existence for 
His sake. Well might the four and twenty elders " cast 
their crowns before His throne, saying, Thou art worthy, 
O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power : for Thou 
hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and 
were created," (Rev. 4. 11.) and therefore its prosperity 
must be entirely ascribed to Him, and to Him alone, by 
whom, and for whom all things were created, and who 
moreover purchased it with His most precious blood. 

How marvellously has this gracious and godly pleasure 
of saving fallen man prospered, even under this dispensa 
tion — the dispensation of the Gospel of Christ. Before 
the incarnation of the Son of God. salvation was confined 



124 



LECTURE V. 



to one nation only, and comparatively few of that nation 
experienced the saving efficacy of divine grace. But since 
that time, the middle wall of partition was broken down, 
and salvation began to be offered to every nation, tongue, 
and kindred ; and great was the prosperity of that Gospel. 
It proved, in a very short time after its promulgation, the 
power of God unto salvation, to the Jews first indeed, 
but also to Gentiles without number ; and it continues 
ever since to make great progress in every part of the 
world, notwithstanding all the oppositions of wicked men 
and wicked angels. There is not a day, an hour, a 
moment, wherein He is not beholding with delight the 
prosperity of His divine pleasure. The dark corners of 
the world are enlightened, the weak established, the 
mourners comforted, and all the host of the redeemed 
prepared for glory. Oh ! every detail of the progress of 
the Gospel as narrated in the Acts of the Apostles — every 
record of the success of missionary enterprise since that 
time to our own day — every district in the pagan world 
heretofore engulphed in impenetrable obscurity — which 
has now been illuminated by the instrumentality of Chris- 
tian men, who have proclaimed the everlasting Gospel 
amongst its inhabitants, and thus enabled the people who 
sat in darkness, even gross darkness, to see a great light, 
the light which is to lighten the Gentiles — and the Sabbath 
bell summoning from scattered cottages a smiling popula- 
tion, linked together by friendship, and happy in all the 
sweetness of domestic charity — I say every minute detail 
or incidental notice, of the progress of the Gospel, attests 
the truth of the prediction with which our text concludes, 
namely, 

" And the pleasure of JEHOVAH shall prosper in His hand." 



But we do not believe., that the progress which Chris- 
tianity is now making under the Gospel dispensation, is 



ISAIAH LI1I. 



125 



at all commensurate with the prediction. We must refer 
its full accomplishment onward to the times and days 
which shall break on this creation, such as have never 
visited it since man rebelled against his Maker. We look 
forward to a time when the whole material system shall 
be splendidly renovated — when the creature itself shall be 
" delivered from the bondage of corruption " — when ani- 
mate and inanimate nature shall reach one general jubilee 
— when the whole of the habitable globe shall be inhabited 
by " a holy priesthood, a peculiar people." We look 
forward to a time when the whole world shall be filled 
with the knowledge of Jehovah Jesus — when the whole 
globe shall be mantled with righteousness and peace — when 
God's will shall be done on earth as it is in heaven — when 
all error, all false doctrine, and all superstition, and all 
opposition shall be known no more — when the sun, in his 
circuit round our globe, shall shine upon no inhabitants 
but those of worshippers of God and His Christ, and 
behold no spectacle but that of a rejoicing multitude, 
walking in the love of the Lord our God. We look forward 
to the promised period, when Israel shall chant the beautiful 
hymn under consideration — after having uttered the pre- 
dicted welcome, " Blessed is He that cometh in the name 
of the Lord " (Mat. 23. 39.) ; when the long trodden 
down Jerusalem, Judea's capital, shall once more become 
a royal diadem in the hand of her God, and " an eternal 
excellency in the whole earth, 11 — when she shall send forth 
her missionaries in every direction to preach the " one 
Mediator between God and man " — whose sound shall be 
heard on every shore — and the east and the west, and the 
north and the south, shall re-echo the peal, and all nations 
and tribes and kindred shall join in the celebration of the 
praises of the u King of kings and Lord of lords.' 1 In 
short, we look for the " new heavens and the new earth, 1 ' 
which Isaiah described in his most fervid strains, (Is. 65. 17), 



126 



LECTURE V. 



and upon which St. Peter gazed with delight, (2 Pet. 3. 1 3), 
and which the beloved disciple beheld in mystic vision on 
the Isle of Patmos, (Rev. 21. 1, 27); when the mysterious 
"tree of life" — which was denied to fallen man, (Gen. 3. 
22) — shall re-appear and be enjoyed by those who shall be 
clothed with the garments of salvation, (Rev. 2. 7. 22. 2, 
14); when " the former things shall no more be remem- 
bered, nor come into mind," when Jehovah Himself shall 
rejoice over the regenerated earth, and over His people all 
righteous — when He shall again see everything that He 
has made, and pronounce it VERY GOOD. Oh ! then, 
and not till then, shall there be a complete fulfilment of 
the prophecy under investigation. Then, when this bur- 
dened and groaning creation shall have been freed from 
the slaves and the objects of the wicked one, and the 
Church of the living God shall reign, with its Bishop, over 
the tribes and provinces of a renewed earth ; then in the 
completeness of the triumph of righteousness, shall be the 
completeness of the prediction. Men, angels, and arch- 
angels, shall then tell out aloud, in language of rapture 
and admiration, the wonders of God's grace, and bear 
their testimony, that if ever prophecy were fulfilled to the 
very letter, it is that with which our text concludes, 

" And the pleasure of JEHOVAH shall prosper in His hand." 

In conclusion, I would address you in the words of St. 
Peter : " Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such 
things, be diligent that ye may be found of Him in peace, 
without spot, and blameless. But grow in grace, and in 
the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To 
Him be glory both now and for ever. Amen." 



ISAIAH Llll. 



127 



LECTURE VI. 



ISAIAH liii. 11, 12. 

" He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied : 
By His knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many ; 
For He shall bear their iniquities. 
Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, 
And He shall divide the spoil with the strong : 
Because He hath poured out His soul unto death : 
And He was numbered with the transgressors : 
And He bare the sin of many, 
And made intercession for the transgressors." 

We have selected this chapter for exposition during the 
last Lent Sabbaths, the meditation and consideration of 
which we deemed peculiarly suited to the solemnities which 
were then observed by the Christian Church ; and we 
should have finished the exposition of the whole chapter 
on the Sunday before Easter, were we not then called upon 
to take part in promoting an object near and dear — I trust 
I may safely say — to all our hearts. An object in which 
every genuine Christian must, through the constraining 
love of Christ, take an heart-felt interest, and to which 
he will therefore yield his warmest support, inasmuch as 
it is a subject connected with Christ's last command on this 
earth — namely, to co-operate with the f ' London Society 



128 



LECTURE VI. 



for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews," in their 
zealous exertions to accomplish their holy desire to erect 
a Church — a pure Christian Church — in that very place 
where the Son of God laid down His life a ransom for 
sinners, where He rose again from the dead, that sinners 
might be justified, in that very place to which He com- 
manded His disciples to begin proclaiming His blessed and 
holy Gospel.* 

However, there is nothing to prevent us from finishing 
our exposition on this hallowed day ; and I must confess 
that it is my opinion, that these two last verses, which 
form our text for this morning, are more fitted for con- 
templation after Easter than before. We commemorated, 
last Sabbath, Christ's resurrection. We then declared 
unto you the glad tidings of great joy, "how that the 
promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath ful- 
filled the same unto us their children, in that He hath raised 
up Jesus again ; as it is also written in the second Psalm, 
Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten Thee." (Acts 
13. 32, 33). We dwelt, I trust, with hallowed and sacred 
delight upon the complete victory which our champion had 
thus achieved, and the glory which He had consequently 
secured. Our thoughts have been exercised on the deep 
principles of everlasting truth involved in that stupendous 
fact. A fact which involves the infinite perfections of God, 
and the eternal destinies of man. We have studied to 
shew you, with as much perspicuity and clearness as we 



* The author called the attention of his congregation on that Sab- 
bath, to a petition then in course of signature to Lord Aberdeen, 
respecting the prohibition of the building of the Anglican Episcopal 
Church at Jerusalem, when he preached a sermon bearing on the sub- 
ject. It must be a cause of unfeigned gratitude to every Christian, to 
know, that through the blessing of God, the petition had the desired 
effect. — See Jewish Intelligence for November 1845. 



ISAIAH LIIT. 



129 



could, fr^m this chapter, that the reason why Christ took 
our nature into union with the divine, was that He might 
effect its reconciliation to its offended God. We pointed 
out to you the inevitable necessity, in order to this, that 
the surety should suffer and die ; we proved to you that 
the claims of justice on the sinful could not have been 
otherwise satisfied. And the Son of God willingly sub- 
mitted to the endurance : " Being found in fashion as a 
man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, 
even the death of the cross (Phil. 2. 8.) : which made 
it expiatory of the sins of the world. Justice and mercy 
met : for when the Redeemer had breathed His soul into 
the hands of His Father, the sinful nature was reconciled, 
and the human race placed within the reach of pardon, 
Accordingly, we endeavoured to show you on Easter Sun- 
day, that the Resurrection was justly expected quickly 
to follow the Crucifixion of Christ. We endeavoured to 
convince you that Justice could not detain our surety in 
the grave, when the claims, which He had taken on Him- 
self, were discharged. Hence we demonstrated that the 
Resurrection of Christ was both the proof and the conse- 
quence of 1 the accomplishment of the mediatorial work : 
He could not have risen had He not exhausted the penalty 
incurred by man ; and when He rose, God may be said 
to have announced to the universe the sufficiency of the 
ransom, and His acceptance of it as an atonement for the 
sins of the world. We state, therefore, once more, that 
the fact of Christ's resurrection involves the infinite per- 
fections of God, and the eternal destinies of man. If He 
had remained in the grave, and His flesh had seen cor- 
ruption, we could only have regarded Him as a man like 
one of ourselves. We could never have considered Him 
as a substitute, whose vicarious sufferings had been effec- 
tual on our behalf ; for so long as He had been still 
"holden in death," we must have felt that He was a 

s 



130 



LECTURE VI. 



debtor to justice, and that therefore, those whom He 
represented could not have been released. But by this 
resurrection our nature was pronounced emancipated from 
the dominion of evil ; and, in the place of the woe and 
the shame which transgression had merited as man's heri- 
tage, there was the beautiful brightness of a purchased 
immortality offered for the acceptance of our race ; and 
the gates of heaven were thrown open to the rebel and 
the outcast. 

Our text, then, speaking respecting the things of 
Christ after His resurrection, is, therefore, a more fitting 
subject for contemplation, after the celebration of that 
stupendous event. For this chapter does not only predict 
our Blessed Lord's incarnation, sufferings, and death ; His 
atonement, mediation, and resurrection : but it also pre- 
dicts the effects of His Gospel, after He is lifted up, and 
the extension of His kingdom throughout the world. 

May the Lord Jehovah Jesus, who is alone able to apply 
His holy word to our soul's salvation — grant to each and 
every one of us, " according to the riches of His glory, to 
be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner 
man : that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith : that 
ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to 
comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and 
length, and depth, and height ; and to know the love of 
Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled 
with all the fulness of God." (Eph. 3. 16—19). 

It will be necessary for us, before we shall be able to 
consider our text, to take a retrospective glance of the 
verse preceding it. For the 10th and 11th verses are 
closely connected, or rather the latter is resumptive and 
confirmatory of the former. We stated, on the Sabbath 
before last, that the 1 0th verse commences with the predic- 
tion respecting Christ's ultimate glory and triumph. One 
cannot help observing, that the Holy J esus, in the days of 



ISAIAH LTII. 



iSl 



His humiliation, must have derived unspeakable pleasure 
from His private contemplation of the last three verses of 
this chapter. Their contents could not have been other- 
wise but encouraging to our adorable Redeemer. For 
while His intense sufferings were not concealed from His 
view, the contemplation of which was well calculated to 
make Him " exceeding sorrowful even unto death," and 
might well cause Him to exclaim in the weakness of His 
flesh, " Father, if it be possible, remove this cup from 
me so neither were His glorious triumphs hid from Him. 
What warm emotions of delight and joy must have filled 
His tender loving heart, when He meditated on the fol- 
lowing glorious declaration : — 

" Verily, if He make Himself a sacrifice for sin. 
He stall see a seed, 
He shall prolong days, 

And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand." 

We can thus fully enter into the spirit of the Apostle's 
description of " the author and finisher of our faith ; who, 
for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, 
despising the shame, and is set down on the right hand of 
God." (Heb. 12. 2). 

Now, in our text, the prophet prosecutes the idea of the 
reward to be enjoyed by the Messiah, as the result of His 
painful sufferings. But here again are we compelled to 
call forth the original to our assistance, in order to obtain 
the full benefit of the instruction our text contains. 

Not only have the translators of the common version 
mistaken the construction of 11th verse, but also the 
translation of the first word of the same. They evidently 
meant to express, 

" He shall see [the fruit] of the travail of His soul," 
but they had no authority for inculcating such a meaning 



132 LECTURE VI. 

even according to the construction they put upon it ; for 
if the} r were correct in their construction, then the text 
would imply that 

"He shall see [a part] of the travail of His soul."* 

I proceed, therefore, to read our text according to its 
strictly original import, 

"After the trouble of His soul,f 
Shall He see [the seed], 
Shall He be satisfied [with long days]. 
By the knowledge of Himself shall He justify : 
The RIGHTEOUS OXE is my servant for many . 
For He shall bear their iniquities. 
Therefore will I apportion Him with the many, 
And He shall divide the spoil among the strong ones, 
Because He poured out His soul unto death, 
And was numbered with transgressors, 
And bare the sin of many, 
And made intercession for the transgressors." 

We shall now. according to the plan we pursued in our 
former discourses on this chapter, proceed to expound our 
text line by line. It begins. 

" After the trouble of His soul, 
Shall He see," 

that is, the " seed" promised Him when He made Him- 
self a sacrifice for sin. He was to realize that promise 



* Dr. Henderson is perfectly correct in his remark, that " the verb n>n 
cannot be construed with <p in the sense of seeing of i.e. 'the fruit of,' 
which our common version expresses. Such construction would imply 
that only a part or portion should be seen." 

t " The preposition [ Q ] is rather used in the sense of after, from the 
time of as in Ps. 73.20, y~xo ttbrn 'as a dream after one awakes.'" 

■ — Henderson in loc. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



183 



after the trouble of His soul was over. And to this agree 
the words of the Prophets, who " testified beforehcmd the 
sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." 
(1 Pet. 1. 10, 11). As also the words of our Lord Him- 
self, as it is written, " And I, if I be lifted up from the 
earth, will draw all men unto me." (John 12. 32). 

Any one who studies carefully our adorable Lord's 
biography, when on this earth, before the crucifixion, must 
be struck with the accuracy and minuteness of the pre- 
diction of our text. Christ did not see any seed, any pro- 
geny of believers, before the great trouble of His soul was 
over. When He was with His disciples before His suffer- 
ings had been finished, He had many times occasion to 
upbraid them because of infidelity ; they were anything 
but His seed then ; some were evidently of the seed of the 
serpent, of the generation of vipers. " 0 faithless gen- 
eration ! how long shall I be with you \ how long shall I 
suffer you V were His repeated remonstrances with them. 
After our Blessed Lord celebrated His last supper on this 
earth ; He, nevertheless, on coming to the Mount of 
Olives, addressed them thus : " All ye shall be offended 
because of me this night : for it is written, I will smite 
the Shepherd, and the sheep of the flock shall be scattered 
abroad." In the garden of Gethsemane they could not 
watch with Him even one hour. When He was on the 
point of laying down His life for a world dead in tres- 
passes and sins, His professedly most attached friends 
betrayed, deserted, and denied Him. But no sooner was 
His career of sufferings, and troubles, and vexation fin- 
ished, than He began to see His seed. Joseph of Ari- 
mathea and Nicodemus, who were, in His life time, afraid 
to be known as the disciples of the despised Nazarene, 
came boldly forward soon after His crucifixion, to pay 
homage to His dead body ; and Christ had more faithful 
followers in the course of forty days after His resurrection 



134 



LECTURE VI. 



than He had professing followers in the three years and a 
half that He laboured personally amongst the children of 
men. We read of three thousand souls being added on 
one day by the preaching of that disciple, who, in his 
Master's life time denied Him. On another occasion we 
read of five thousand souls being converted by the preach- 
ing of the same Apostle. And in the course of a few 
years, Judea was overspread with Christian communities. 
Jerusalem alone — the very place in which the Lord of 
glory was crucified and put to an open shame, and in which 
the absurd report was circulated, that " His disciples came 
by night and stole Him away," while the soldiers slept, 
in order to throw discredit on the overpowering fact of 
the resurrection — I say, this very place numbered in a few 
years many myriads of believing Israelites,* besides great 
numbers of the Gentiles. How faithful then was the 
promise to Jesus ! 

"After the trouble of His soul 
Shall He see the seedy 

Hath He said and will He not perform ? What multi- 
tudes of different nations, and kindreds, and tongues, and 
people, have heard the word of the Lord Jesus, and be- 
lieved, and were saved ! Look back on the impure 
Romans, the licentious Corinthians, the sensual Ephesians, 
the ignorant Philippians, the idolatrous Thessalonians, 
who embraced the truth as it is in Jesus in the days of 
the Apostles. Behold with the eye of faith the spirits 
of the just made perfect — look at the souls under the 
altar ; observe the mansions of Paradise peopled from our 
world, and you will appreciate the prediction of our text, 



* GfwpsTf, ade\<ps f novai nvpiahg uoiv 'lovdaiwv t<ov TrnriGTtvKOTuv. 
Acts xxi. 20. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



135 



that after the trouble of our Redeemer's soul was to be 
over, He was to see a seed, and innumerable progeny of 
believers. 

But as we have observed before, that the complete fulfil- 
ment of the prophecy has not taken place as yet, so do we 
now. The great triumph which the Gospel of Christ has al- 
ready achieved, is after all a partial one. In fact, in a certain 
sense, the trouble of our beloved Redeemer's soul is not over 
yet. So long as this earth is the abode of the prince of the 
power of darkness ; so long as professing Christians act 
contrary to the precepts of their Lord God ; so long as the 
name of Jesus is blasphemed amongst unbelievers, in con- 
sequence of professing believers' inconsistencies ; in a word, 
so long as the Son of God is crucified afresh, and put to 
an open shame ; so long will the trouble of Christ's soul 
not be over. But we look forward to the strict fulfilment 
of Gods intentions, which are comprised in the following 
beautifully emphatic and gracious words : " Look unto me, 
and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth ; for I am God, 
and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word 
is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not 
return, that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue 
shall swear. Surely, shall one say, In the Lord have I 
righteousness and strength : even to him shall men come ; 
and all that are incensed against Him shall be ashamed. 
In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and 
shall glory " (Is. 45. 22—25) ; which words St. Paul 
quotes, after dilating on the trouble of the soul of Jesus, 
in the following expository manner : " Wherefore God also 
hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is 
above every name : that at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and 
things under the earth ; and that every tongue should 
confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father." (Phil. 2. 9—11). Yes, dearly beloved, we look 



136 



LECTURE VI. 



forward to that glorious and truly happy period, when true 
Christianity, in unsullied purity, shall be established on 
this earth, when God's kingdom shall come, when His will 
be done on earth as it is in heaven, when sin and Satan 
shall be for ever banished from every corner of this globe. 
Then it is that the multitudes of the ransomed ones 
shall rehearse in melodious raptures the long predicted 
triumph, 

" After the trouble of His soul 
Shall He see the seed." 

How fervent then should be our prayer for that long looked 
for period ! How earnestly should every Christian join 
David in his prayer : " Let God arise, let His enemies be 
scattered : let them also that hate Him flee before Him. 
As smoke is driven away, so drive them away : as wax 
melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish in the 
presence of God. But let the righteous be glad ; let them 
rejoice before God : yea, let them exceedingly rejoice.*" 
(Ps. 68. 1—3).* The whole of this Psalm refers to that 
time. — With what heartfelt sincerity should we re-echo 
the prayer of Isaiah for the advent of that event. " Oh 
that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest 
come down, that the mountains might flow down at Thy 
presence, as when the melting fire burneth, the fire causeth 
the water to boil, to make Thy name known to Thine 
adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Thy presence." 
(Is. 64. 1, 2). Dearly beloved, it is our bounden duty to pray 
for those things which promote the honour of Christ, and 



* The prayer used by the Psalmist is the same which Moses used 
in the wilderness — which was a type of this dreary dispensation — when 
the ark, which was a type of Christ, set forward. See Num. 10. 
35, 36. 



ISAIAH LITI. 



137 



the everlasting felicity of His people. But never shall 
the trouble of Christ's soul be over, and the glory and 
honour of our adorable Lord complete, until those 
things which Moses, David, Isaiah, Zechariah, Paul, Peter, 
John, and many other holy men of old prayed for. As 
long as their prayers remain unanswered, iniquity shall 
abound, yea, and even increase more and more ; until then 
wicked men will deny and blaspheme the Lord that came 
to save them ; His few humble disciples shall be persecuted, 
contemned, scorned, and evil spoken of ; so much so, that 
their heart shall begin to fail them, and make them 
ashamed to confess themselves as the seed of Christ. 
This our blessed Lord foresaw, as He Himself tells us, 
" And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many 
shall wax cold;' (Matt. 24. 12). As also, " When the 
Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth V 1 
(Luke 18. 8). But as soon as the trouble of our Re- 
deemer's soul shall be altogether over, when sin and Satan 
shall be no more, when the old serpent and his seed shall 
be destroyed ; when Christ, the Branch, shall slay the 
wicked with the breath of His lips ; then shall be fulfilled 
the words of the Evangelical prophet, " The wolf also 
shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down 
with the kid ; and the calf and the young lion and the 
fatling together ; and a little child shall lead them. And 
the cow and the bear shall feed ; their young ones shall lie 
down together : and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, 
and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice 1 
den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy 
mountain : for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of 
the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. And in that day 
there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an 
ensign of the people ; to it shall the Gentiles seek : and 
His rest shall be glorious. 1 ' (Is. 11. 6—10). Then shall 

T 



138 



LECTURE VI. 



He see His seed — a great multitude which no man shall 
be able to number, of all nations, and kindreds, and 
people, and tongues. Then shall come to pass — in the 
strictest sense — the saying of the aged Simeon, who spoke 
as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, that the Holy child 
Jesus should be " A LIGHT TO LIGHTEN THE GEN- 
TILES, AND THE GLORY OF HIS PEOPLE IS- 
RAEL." Then shall He be satisfied with the length of 
days promised to the Messiah in the 10th verse of this 
chapter ; as also in other parts of God's holy word. There 
is a striking parallel passage to this in the 91st Psalm. 
Read with me the last verse of that Psalm : " With long 
life " — literally, as you may observe in the margin, " With 
length of days " — " will I satisfy Him, and shew Him my 
salvation." That the whole of the 9 1st Psalm refers to 
Christ or the Messiah, is admitted both by Jews and 
Christians, and even Satan himself knew it, for he cited 
the 11th and 12th verses when he dared to tempt our 
blessed Saviour. (Matt. 4. 6).* Daniel in his mystic vision 
also foresaw the " length of days," or eternal life which 
Christ's humanity would be endued with. Turn to the 7th 
chapter and the 13th and 14th verses of his book. " I saw 
in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of man 
came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient 
of days, and they brought Him near before Him. And 
there was given Him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, 
that all people, nations, and languages, should serve Him : 
His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not 
pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be 
destroyed." Here you have the Son of Man entrusted 
with " an everlasting dominion, 1 ' or in other words, satis- 
fied with length of days. 



* See also Bishop Home in loco. 



ISAIAH LIII. 130 

The verb inn;* " He shall be satisfied, -11 implies abun- 
dance. It means to he supplied to the full, so much so that 
the person who is predicated as such, does not wish for any 
more of the same sort of gratification. And this I con- 
ceive to be precisely the import of Christ's satisfaction. I 
may perhaps make my view on this expression much 
clearer, by referring you to a passage in St. Paul's first 
epistle to the Corinthians. " Then cometh the end, when 
He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the 
Father ; when He shall have put down all rule and all 
authority and power. For He must reign, till He hath 
put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall 
be destroyed is death. For He hath put all things under 
His feet. But when He saith all things are put under 
Him, it is manifest that He is excepted, which did put all 
things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued 
unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject 
unto Him that put all things under Him, that God may be 
all in all." (1 Cor. 15. 24—28). It seems to me that St. 
Paul had this expression of our text in view, namely, that 
Christ shall be satisfied with His reward, having the heathen 
for His inheritance, the uttermost parts of the earth for His 
possession ; Satan, the great usurper, being destroyed, so 
that he can deceive the nations no longer ; God's will being 
done on earth as it is in heaven ; every knee bowing to 

JeSUS Of THINGS IN HEAVEN, AND THINGS IN EARTH, AND 
UNDER THE EARTH ; EVERY TONGUE CONFESSING THAT JESUS 

Christ is Lord ; in a word, all His enemies being made 
His footstool ; and, therefore, He shall be satisfied, and 
deliver up the kingdom to God the Father, " that God may 
be ALL IN ALL." 

Dearly beloved, how fervently should we pray for the 
hastening of that glorious period ! Oh, what a different 
world shall ours then be from what it is now ! We believe 



140 



LECTURE VI. 



on the authority of the word of God, that the world itself 
shall have its resurrection ; nature shall have its regenera- 
tion, its true, beautifying, restoration. " Behold," says 
He, that sits on the throne, " I make all things new." 
A theme, according to St. Peter, which has occupied the 
attention of men of God since the commencement of the 
world. Dear brethren, we imitate the inspired Peter, and 
we say to you as he said to the Jews of old, " Eepent 
ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be 
blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from 
the presence of the Lord ; And he shall send Jesus Christ, 
which before was preached unto you : whom the heaven 
must receive until the times of restitution of all things 
which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy 
prophets since the world began." (Acts 3. 19 — 21). Then 
it is that Christ shall be satisfied ; then, when He shall 
gaze on the renovated creation, when He shall behold the 
numberless number of its ransomed inhabitants, when He 
shall see it with new, untold, inconceivable beauty — the 
beauty of redeeming grace. Christ shall be satisfied when 
beholding the glory which shall then be brought to God in 
consequence of that new covenant established between 
heaven and earth, in the salvation of untold myriads of 
immortal souls, in the spread of His kingdom far and wide 
as creation's utmost bounds. 

We must reluctantly leave this enchanting subject, on 
which we might, with great advantage, dwell much longer, 
for, 

" So vast the theme, it might inspire 
An angel's song, a Seraph's lyre." 

But leave it we must, that we may go on with the con- 
sideration of the remainder of our text. 

The prophet proceeds to account for the multitude of 



ISAIAH LIII. 



believers in Christ, or in other words, for the multitude 
of His seed which He is to see. For 

" By the knowledge of Himself shall He justify." 

The evangelical prophet had evidently respect to the 
predictions referring to the Millennial period ; as he himself 
has already proclaimed a time when " the earth shall be 
full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the 
sea ;" or in the words of another Prophet, " For the earth 
shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, 
as the waters cover the sea " (Hab. 2. 14) ; or as Je- 
hovah Himself foretold by Jeremiah, in describing the 
blessings of the new covenant, that " all shall know Him, 
from the least of them unto the greatest of them, 1 ' and 
then the reason assigned is just the same as that given by 
Isaiah, in the clause under review, " for I will forgive their 
iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more." (Jer. 
31. 34).* 

" By the knowledge of Himself," means, By such a 
knowledge of Christ, as produceth faith and odedience; 
namely, a spiritual aquaintance with Him and His pro- 
pitiatory sufferings. And to this agree the words of our 
Saviour Himself, in His parting address to His disciples. 
" And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." 
(John 17. 3). Compare this with St. Paul's sermon in the 
synagogue of Antioch : " Be it known unto you therefore, 
men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto 



* The above passages are interpreted by ancient Jewish commenta- 
tors to refer to the days of the Messiah. The following are Rabbi 
David Kimchi's own words on Habakkuk 2. 14: — 

ws> rrrro n»"o w m pxh win wp&b ""tm n "rob rw nsrb pan sten *s 
Draa ub ora Vi n» rwn ywi rwbo ^ mw noun vs"m moan m "trm 
*rn» wt dVd '3 irrov rwoa to pi rumen p» weto rca n^uran wi mi 

•,DVVU Iff) D3tDpQb 



142 



LECTURE VI. 



you the forgiveness of sins : and by Him all that believe 
are justified from all things, from which ye could not be 
justified by the law of Moses." (Acts 13. 38, 39). As 
also with his epistle to the Philippians : " Yea doubtless, 
and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord : for whom I have 
suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but 
dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him, not 
having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but 
that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteous- 
ness which is of God by faith." (3. 8, 9). The same view 
was taken by St. Peter, on the prophecy before us, as will 
be seen by a reference to the introduction of his second 
epistle. " Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through 
the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according 
as His divine power hath given unto us all things that 
pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of 
Him that hath called us to glory and virtue." (2 Peter 1. 
2, 3). 

Dear brethren, if you desire to be justified in the sight 
of a Holy Omniscient God, you must become fully ac- 
quainted with Christ the Lord, with His plan of salvation, 
with His doctrines, and with the terms of His religion, 
that you may know what to do in order to be saved — 
otherwise you can never be regarded or treated as righteous 
in the sight of a heart-searching God. This is the import 
of the words of the prophet, 

"By the knowledge of Himself shall Ho, justify" 

or " shall He make righteous." I conceive the 11th Ar- 
ticle of our holy religion to be a beautiful comment on 
Isaiah's words, which is the following : — " On the justifi- 
cation of man. — We are accounted righteous before God, 
only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, 
by faith, and not for our own works or deservings : Where- 



ISAIAH LIII. 



fore, that we are justified by faith only, is a most whole- 
some doctrine, and very full of comfort. 1 '' 

This is not the only place where Isaiah speaks of our 
being accounted righteous in God's sight by a vital know- 
ledge of Him. He spoke to the same effect in the 45th 
chapter of his book. " Surely, shall one say, In the Lord 
have I righteousness and strength : even to Him shall 
men come ; and all that are incensed against Him shall 
be ashamed. In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be 
justified, and shall glory." (verses 24, 25). Nor is Isaiah 
the only prophet who predicted the mode of fallen man's 
justification before God. Jeremiah, when fortelling the 
kingdom of the Righteous Branch on this hitherto polluted 
globe, adds, "In His days Judah shall be saved, and 
Israel shall dwell safely : and this is His name whereby 
He shall be called, The Lord our Righteousness.''' (Jer. 
23. 6). A passage which has been applied by almost all 
ancient Jewish commentators to the days of the Messiah ;* 
and which St. Paul had evidently in mind whilst writing 
all his epistles, as such expressions as these plainly shew : 
" But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made 
unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and 
redemption : that, according as it is written, He that 
glorieth, let him glory in the Lord." (I Cor. 1. SO, 31).f 
I make no apology for having quoted so many Biblical pas- 
sages, as I am daily more and more convinced, that Scripture 
is its best interpreter, and I am anxious to impress this upon 
your minds, that when you are studying this sacred volume 



hid* vb "ran ovp pis mr wira "upis »"* D©n mi rroon mrp t xaas t * 
— Rabbi David Kimchi in loco. 

:rr *js orarr row? 7« i»bn invnb i3p-K mrr rnyon ou iiron *qn 

—-Rabbi Joseph Albo in his book Ekarim, part 2nd. chap. 28. 

f Compare 2 Cor. 2. 21 ; Rom. 3. 20, 25 ; Eph. 2. 8, 9 ; Gal 2. 16 ; 

Titus 3. 6, 7 ; Phil. 3. 8, 9, &c. &c. 



144 



LECTURE VI. 



by yourselves, and find a passage which you do not well 
understand, the best commentary you could employ on 
such an occasion, is comparing Scripture with Scripture. 

" The Righteous One is my servant for many." 

The expression &yib "for the many," evidently means 
the many that were made sinners by the offence of the 
first Adam ; that is, the whole human race ; for all have 
sinned, all have fallen, and for all those the RIGHTEOUS 
JESUS " took upon Him the form of a SERVANT." 
St. Paul must have referred to this expression when 
writing to the Romans, as it appears by a comparison with 
the following verses, " But not as the offence, so also is the 
free gift. For if through the offence of one, many (01 ttoWoi) 
be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by 
grace, hath abounded unto many," (ds tovq hoXKovq). 
" For as by one man's disobedience, many (ol noXkoi) were 
made sinners, so by the obedience of ONE shall many 
(oi TToWoi) be made righteous." (Rom 5< 15, 19). So 
that as the ol ttoWoI of the Apostle means those that 
have sinned, so the DOI of the prophet means those for 
whom Christ died, who are no other than those who have 
sinned. Seeing as I do before me several learned men, 
amongst whom are some divinity students, I scruple not to 
bring these critical remarks before you, which, 1 am aware, 
would have been out of place, if all my hearers were of 
the lower classes. 

The epithet pm "THE RIGHTEOUS ONE " is a 
term applied by the ancient Jewish divines to the Son of 
God ; as you will perceive from the comparison of the 
following two of the many passages found in the book of 
Zohar. " It is better for a man to have a £ neighbour that 
is near than a brother far off, 1 that is, the middle pillar, 



ISAIAH LIII. 



145 



who is the Son of God."* In the next page of the same 
book we find the following : — " On what does the world 
subsist I [The answer is], Upon one pillar, the name 
of which is, The Righteous One, as it is written, ' But 
the Righteous One is an everlasting foundation." "-(- 

The misconstruction of the clause under review gave rise 
to the hazardous opinion that the text was corrupted, and 
the word p*71f interpolated — an opinion which Gentile 
Christian divines commonly arrive at when they are at a 
loss to understand a text ; J but it is also an opinion fraught 
with no small measure of mischief : and it ill becomes those, 
who advocate inspiration for the Old Testament, to open 
such a wide door of retreat for deism and infidelity, which 
they certainly do, by such a system of scriptural interpre- 
tation. I must confess I often tremble for such critics, 
remembering the words of St. Peter. § 

The reason assigned why the " Righteous One " is 
designated 5 ' Servant" is the following : 

"For || He shall bear their iniquities," 

that is, the iniquities of the D'il, or 0 l -rroXkol, or the many. 
Now compare this for a moment with our Lord's advice to 
His disciples, when He and they were going up to Jerusa- 
lem : — " But Jesus called them unto Him, and said, Ye 
know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion 
over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon 
them. But it shall not be so among you : but whosoever 
will be great among you, let him be your minister ; and 



: rv p lmn armo^o *nra» inw pirn nan mn> u» -d "ark rrt stdi * 
: tid > pnsi icmw pns idwb inn irai> by "raw obwr rra w + 
Zohar vol. 2, fol. 115, col. 2 ; fol. 116. col. 1. Amsterdam edition, 
A. M. 5566. A.D. "1806. 

X See pp. 45, 55, 56, 99—103. § 2 Peter 3. 16. See Appendix M. 
|| The i in orwi is causal. 

u 



146 



LECTURE VI. 



whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your 
servant : even as the Son of Man came not to be minis- 
tered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom 
for many." (Matt. 20. 25—28). St. John, the beloved 
disciple, when relating the verdict of Caiaphas, (who said 
that it was expedient that one man should die for the peo- 
ple, and that the whole nation perish not,) adds as he was 
moved by the Holy Ghost, " And this spake he not of 
himself : but being high priest that year, he prophesied 
that Jesus should die for that nation and not for that 
nation only, but that also He should gather together in 
one the children of God that were scattered abroad " 
(John 11. 51, 52). Mysterious arrangement ! mysterious 
condescension ! Love so great, so transcendently great ! 
The first Adam, our common parent, was created in the 
image of God, and was therefore honoured with the un- 
speakably glorious relationship of his Creator, so that he 
was called " the son of God and had not Adam dis- 
obeyed, we, his descendants, would have enjoyed the same 
relationship. But in consequence of the foul stratagem 
of the old serpent, our first progenitor was driven out from 
the presence of God, and kept at a distance, servant-like, 
until the Son of God took upon Himself our form, which 
was " the form of a servant," so that the Righteous One 
became the servant for the many, and endured their 
penalty, by which He reinstated us in our original position, 
and made us His friends. ■ " Ye are my friends, if ye do 
whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not 
servants ; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth : 
but 1 have called you friends ; for all things that I have 
heard of my Father I have made known unto you." (John 
15. 14, 15). Nay more, we have become Chrisfs brethren. 



* Luke 3. 38. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



1 



" sons of God," and fellow-heirs with Christ, the Lord of 
glory. 

In the last verse of this chapter, Jehovah announces, as 
it were, the exact reward of His Son, in consequence of 
the mighty victory which He attained. 

" Therefore I will apportion Him with the many." 

" The many," who were reconciled to God by faith in the 
Lord Jesus Christ. And that they were all given to the 
Messiah, He Himself is witness. Read the heart-cheering 
words, which He Himself breathed : " And this is the 
Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which He hath 
given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up 
again at the last day." (John 6. 39). He therefore tenderly 
calls them His sheep. " My sheep hear my voice, and I 
know them, and they follow me : and I give unto them 
eternal life ; and they shall never perish, neither shall any 
man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave 
them me, is greater than all ; and no man is able to pluck 
them out of my Father's hand." (John 10. 27—2.9). O, 
with what abundance of joy, joy unspeakable, should the 
believer's heart be filled at the contemplation of this grand 
scheme of redemption ! Not only are our sins removed 
and our conscience purged to serve the living God, by the 
blood of Christ : but we are made Christ's inheritance. 
Yea, Jesus purchased us with His own precious blood. 
How precious must man then have been in the sight of 
God, that he was thought worthy to be redeemed by the 
blood of the Eternal Son ! How superior must he have 
been considered in the estimation of the Creator to angels ! 
For them no atonement was made ; they were not con- 
sidered a gift rich enough for the co-equal and co-eternal 
with the Father. But " the many," the human race, were 
apportioned to Him. Hear how St. Paul exhorts the 
elders of Ephesus at Miletus, respecting Christ's people. 



148 



LECTURE VI. 



" Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, 
over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, 
to feed the Church of God, which He hath purchased with 
His own blood." (Acts 20. 28). But what is most heart- 
cheering, and passeth understanding, is the fact that the 
inheritance is reciprocal ; whilst the redeemed become the 
heritage of the Redeemer, the Redeemer becomes the in- 
heritance of the redeemed. Thus does the same Apostle 
teach the same Ephesians in the epistle he addressed to 
them. " In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, 
being predestinated according to the purpose of Him who 
worketh all things after the counsel of His own will : that 
we should be to the praise of His glory, who first trusted 
in Christ. In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard 
the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation : in whom 
also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy 
Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, 
until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto 
the praise of His glory." (Eph. 1. 11—14). Well might 
St. John say, " Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and 
it doth not yet appear what we shall be : but we know 
that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him ; for we 
shall see Him as He is." (Uohn 3. 2). What incentives to 
holiness and godliness ! Hear the words of St. Peter : "But 
ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy 
nation, a peculiar people, [or literally, as in the margin, 
' a purchased people'] ; that ye should shew forth the 
praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into 
His marvellous light : which in time past were not a 
people, but are now the people of God : which had not 
obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy." (1 Pet. 2. 
9, 10). " Behold, then, what manner of love the Father 
hath bestowed upon us," who by reason of our manifold 
sins and wickednesses, have well deserved the epithets of 
"generation of vipers," "seed of evil doers, " and many 



ISAIAH LIII. 



149 



other such like, whose portion is everlasting perdition ; 
but through our Lord's suffering in our stead, we are 
apportioned to Him, and thus become the people of God.* 
But this is not all, We are, moreover, favoured with 
the following delightful information : 

" And He shall divide the spoil among the strong ones." 
The spoil which He was to win in His spiritual conflict, in 
which He was to engage ; and which, according to military 
custom, the General or Captain distributes amongst the 
heroes who fought under His banner. The language is 
metaphorical. The Christian's career is very often re- 
presented in God's Holy Word, under the metaphor of a 
warfare. Thus the Son of David is called " a leader and 
commander to the people," (Is. 55. 4.), or as St. Paul 
calls Him, ''the Captain of their salvation." (Heb. 2. 10). 
As they who have enlisted under His banner, and " quit 
themselves like men," fighting " the good fight of faith," 
and enduring cheerfully all the hardships of the campaign 
are called " good soldiers of Jesus Christ." Like faithful 
w r arriors, they do not entangle themselves with the affairs 
of this life ; that they may please Him who hath chosen 
them to be soldiers, (2 Tim. 2. 34) ; but they strive to 
fight a good warfare, and they expect the rewards of 
victory, when they have vanquished all their foes. Let us 
refer to a few passages of Scripture, in order to ascertain 
the nature of the conflict and the conquest. This our 
earth, which was created by God Himself, and, as a matter 
of course, was very good, Satan usurped by seducing our 
first parents into disobedience. Satan became the prince 
of this world. Man, the noblest of God's creatures, by 
yielding to the tempter, became his friend, his ally, and his 
servant. Man's nature became evil, and at peace with 
the great enemy of his soul, who has achieved so fatal a 



* See Appendix N. 



150 



LECTURE VI. 



victory over him. God at once announced mortal war 
against the old serpent, the devil ; which shall terminate 
in his utter destruction. And not only would God fight 
against him, but the very human race, whom he had just 
induced to join him in rebellion against heaven, and whom 
he thought to hold with an undisputed supremacy in 
vassalage, would also be wrested from his grasp, and 
he would not be allowed to enjoy his conquest over 
them unassailed, and moreover that very race would fight 
against him. For the All-merciful God graciously promised 
to "put enmity " in man's heart which became " deceitful 
above all things, and desperately wicked. 11 So that in 
the first prophecy, (Gen. 3. 15.) there is nothing less than 
a description of an incessant combat, of which this earth 
shall be the platform, and which shall end in the complete 
discomfiture of the old serpent and his seed. And no one, 
who is conversant with other predictions contained in this 
sacred volume, can fail to find in this brief and solitary 
verse the announcement of those very conflicts and con- 
quests, which form the theme of Isaiah's noble verse, and 
the subject of Ezekiel, Daniel, and St. John's sublime 
delineations ; namely, that this globe would be wrested 
from the grasp of the apostate angel, with the inhabitants 
thereof ; the usurper would be destroyed, and the whole 
habitable earth would become the Temple of the living 
God. To this agree the words of all the prophets. It is 
not necessary to refer to all ; we may, however, refer to a 
few of them. Begin with the Prophet Isaiah. " And He 
saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was 
no intercessor : therefore His arm brought salvation unto 
Him ; and His righteousness, it sustained Him. For He 
put on righteousness as a breast-plate, and an helmet of 
salvation upon His head : and He put on the garments of 
vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloke. 
According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, fury 



ISAIAH LIII, 



151 



to His adversaries, recompence to His enemies ; to the 
islands He will repay recompence. So shall they fear the 
name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the 
rising of the sun. When the enemy shall come in like a 
flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard 
against him. And the Redeemer shall come to Zion, 
and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, 
saith the Lord." (59. 16 — 20). Now read also a passage 
in the book of the Prophet Malachi. " For from the 
rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same 
my name shall be great among the Gentiles ; and in every 
place incense shall be offered unto my name, and a pure 
offering : for my name shall be great among the heathen, 
saith the Lord of hosts. " (1. 11). Turn now to a passage 
or two in the book of the Revelations. "And the seventh 
angel sounded ; and there were great voices in heaven, 
saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the king- 
doms of our Lord, and of His Christ ; and He shall reign 
for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which 
sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and 
worshipped God ; saying, We give thee thanks, 0 Lord 
God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come ; 
because Thou hast taken to Thee Thy great power, and 
hast reigned." (11. 15 — 17). " These shall make war 
with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them : for 
He is Lord of lords, and King of kings : and they that 
are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful." (17. 14). 
i: And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse ; 
and He that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, 
and in righteousness He doth judge and make war. His 
eyes were as a flame of Are, and on His head were many 
crowns ; and He had a name written, that no man knew 
but He Himself. And He was clothed with a vesture 
dipped in blood : and His name is called the Word of God. 
And the armies which were in heaven followed Him upon 



152 LECTURE VI, 

white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And 
out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He 
should smite the nations : and He shall rule them with a 
rod of iron : and He treadeth the winepress of the fierce- 
ness and wrath of Almighty God. And He hath on His 
vesture and on His thigh a name written, KING OF 
KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an 
angel standing in the sun ; and he cried with a loud voice, 
saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven. 
Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of 
the great God ; that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and 
the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and 
the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the 
flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. 
And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their 
armies, gathered together to make war against Him that 
sat on the horse, and against His army. And the beast 
was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought 
miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had 
received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped 
his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire 
burning with brimstone. And the remnant were slain 
with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which 
sword proceeded out of His mouth : and all the fowls were 
filled with their flesh." (19. 11 — SI). 

But Christ has graciously promised to divide the spoils 
which He was to take from the hold of the great enemy 
" among the strong ones," among those who fought a good 
fight in His cause, and have finished their course keeping 
the faith, (2 Tim. 4. 7), laying hold on eternal life, (1 Tim. 
6. 12), and who were enabled by God's grace to wax val- 
iant in that fight. (Heb. 1 1. 34). All such faithful soldiers 
and servants are to be the recipients of the spoil. The 
Psalmist speaks to the same effect : " Thou hast ascended 
on high, Thou hast led captivity captive ; Thou hast re- 



ISAIAH LIII. 



153 



ceived gifts for men ; yea, for the rebellious also, that the 
Lord God might dwell among them.'' (Ps. 68. 18). And 
thus not only does Christ trample Satan under His feet, 
but the soldiers of the cress are to do the same. Of this 
the seventy disciples had a foretaste. We read in the 
Gospel according to St. Luke, " And the seventy returned 
again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject 
unto us through Thy name. And He said unto them, 
I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven, Behold, I 
give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, 
and over all the power of the enemy : and nothing shall 
by any means hurt you." (10. 17 — 19), Of this, St. Paul 
assured the Christians at Kome, in the words, And the 
God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.'' 
(Rom. 16. 20). 

The uttermost parts of the earth were promised to 
the Son of God as His inheritance (Psalms 2; 72; 89 ; &c.) 
But His people are to be fellow heirs with Him. The 
following gracious declarations are found in our Lord's 
Sermon on the Mount : " Blessed are the meek : for they 
shall inherit the earth. Blessed are they which are per- 
secuted for righteousness' sake : for theirs is the kingdom 
of heaven." (Matt. 5. 5, 10). This seems to be the grand 
import of the new song, which was put into the mouths 
of the four beasts and the four and twenty elders : — " Thou 
art worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof : 
for Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy 
blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and 
nation ; and hast made us unto our God kings and priests : 
and we shall reign on the earth. 1 ' (Rev. 5. 9, 10). Christ 
is to be seated on the white throne, to judge the earth 
in righteousness ; so are to be His faithful followers, whom 
Jesus thus addressed, " Ye are they which have continued 
with me in my temptations. And I appoint unto you a 
kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me ; that ye 

x 



154 



LECTURE VI- 



may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit oil 
thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.' 1 (Luke 22. 
28 — 30). Turn also to His address to the angel of the 
Church in Thyatira : " He that overcometh, and keepeth 
my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the 
nations : and he shall rule them with a rod of iron ; as the 
vessels of a potter shall they be broken to shivers : even as 
I received of my Father. And I will give them the morn- 
ing star." (Rev. 2. 26 — 58). The passages which have 
respect to this glorious theme are too numerous to be 
quoted in the space of time generally allotted for a dis- 
course of this kind. However the few to which we have 
referred are sufficient to convince us that there are great, 
unspeakably great, and glorious things in store for the 
truly faithful. But, brethren, they must fight for those 
precious things. They must never forget their position 
upon earth, which is that of combatants, of beings engaged 
in a tremendous and desperate struggle, but to whose view 
is held up a vast recompense of reward. 

It has been already stated, that the metaphor employed 
in our text is derived from human warfare, as it is else- 
where derived from the public games so famous in anti- 
quity. St. Paul delights to liken himself and other 
followers of Christ to the competitors in a race, to the 
opponents in wrestling. And just as those who entered 
the lists in the public games were animated by the prizes 
which success was to procure, they had the honoured 
garlands in sight: if disposed for a single moment to 
slacken, they had but to turn their eyes to the coronets, 
and they pressed with new vigour towards the goal. So 
should it be with Christians, the spiritual competitors ; 
for it is also their privilege to know, that if they are faith- 
ful to the end, their spiritual contest will issue in an 
exceeding and eternal weight of glory ! St. Paul con- 
trasts the respective rewards of the worldly wrestler with 



ISAIAH LIII. 



155 



that of the spiritual. He says, " Know ye not that they 
which run in a race run all, but one receiveth the prize. So 
run, that ye may obtain. " (1 Cor. 9. 24). The Apostle 
appeals, as it were, to the common sense of the Corinthian 
Christians ; as much as to say, "Shall we be languid in our 
exertions ? A paltry recompense will animate the wrestlers, 
or the runners, to concentrate all their exertions in order 
that they may win the garland or the coronet. Shall we, 
then, with such an exceeding and eternal weight of glory 
before our view, grudge the toil or spare the effort, which 
may enable us to win the 'crown of life. 1 ' They do it to 
obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible? " 
(1 Cor. 9. 25). 

There must be a determined enmity in the hearts of Chris- 
tians against Satan and his works. They must be always on 
the alert ; clothed in the whole armour of God. Truth 
must be the girdle of their loins — Righteousness must be 
their breastplate — the Gospel of peace must be their greaves 
— Faith must be their shield — the Word of God must be 
their helmet and their sword. And in accordance with 
Jesus' commandment, they must be watchful in prayer, 
yea, they must pray without ceasing ; or, in St. Paul's 
words, " Praying always with all prayer and supplication 
in the spirit." (Eph. 6. 10—18). 

Dearly beloved, if you are really anxious to flee from 
the wrath to come, and to be found amongst those who 
shall reign with our Lord for ever and ever, you must lose 
no time, but at once enter the battle-field, arrayed in the 
divine panoply depicted by the brave Christian soldier, St. 
Paul, that you may be strong in the Lord, and be able to 
stand fast in the faith, and quit you like men. (Rom. 16. 13). 
For it is only such that shall be entitled to a part and lot 
in the spoil of the Redeemer, as it is written : — 

" And He shall divide the spoil among the strong ones." 



156 



LECTURE VI. 



The word which is translated in our text " the strong" 
is also used by Daniel, (8. 24.) when describing the fearful 
onslaught of the " king of fierce countenance," and the 
disastrous consequences. In Daniel the word is synony- 
mous with " holy people" or literally, "people of saints." 
" And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own 
power : and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall pros- 
per, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the 
holy people. ,, (Dan. 8. 24).* So that the strong ones must 
be at the same time a holy people, or a people of saints. 

W e can but briefly notice the remainder of our text. 
In fact it does not require more than that, inasmuch as it 
is only a repetition of former announcements. The Pro- 
phet is so full of the amazing love of the Son of God, in 
laying down His life as a ransom for the sins of men, in 
order to reconcile the sinful creatures to their offended 
Creator, that He once more resumes the subject, and sums 
up the whole in the following brief declarations : — ■ 

" Because He poured out His soul unto death, 
And was numbered with transgressors, 
And He bare the sin of many, 
And made intercession for the transgressors." 

Dearly beloved, you may well exclaim, " Who could 
have witnessed the transactions, which have taken place 
in the judgment-hall and on Calvary, and not have been 
convinced that Jesus of Nazareth was the person spoken 
of in this chapter?" There we behold Jesus, who could 
have asked His Father for twelve legions of angels to 
fight for Him, or might have spoken to Pilate, which 
would have had the effect of His release — as Pilate him- 
self said, " Speakest thou not to me \ Knowest thou not 



* atrip cm D'SQI^R? irmcm are the words of Daniel > and foo pfrp p'2D12Q? rwi 
are the words of Isaiah. Appendix O. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



157 



that I have power to crucify, and have power to release 
thee f But the Holy Jesus came for the express purpose 
of laying down His life a ransom for lifeless sinners ; He, 
therefore, rejoined to Pilate, " Thou coulclest have no 
power at all against me, except it were given thee from 
above." (John 19. 10, 11). How beautifully harmonious 
with the words of Isaiah in our text ! 

" Because He poured out His soul unto death." 

" Therefore," said the good Shepherd, "doth my Father 
love me, because / lay down my life, that I may take it 
again. No man taketh it from me, but 2" lay it down 
myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to 
take it again." (John 10. 17, 18). So that the scene in 
the judgment-hall bore testimony that Isaiah spake thus 
of Jesus of Nazareth ; who voluntarily and unreservedly 
exposed Himself to death in our room ; which the original 
words of the text forcibly express.* 

W e might suppose our Saviour to say, " Does the ex- 
hibition in the judgment-hall fail of convincing you, that 
the son of Amoz spoke of me in his 53rd chapter? then 
follow me to Calvary ; you will there behold me, ' crucified 
between two malefactors,' one on my right hand and 
another on my left, in accordance with a clause in the same 
chapter, namely, 

'And He was numbered with transgressors.' 

St. Mark was forcibly struck with the minute fulfilment of 
this prophetic record, as we find in his Gospel a particular 
reference to it. Turn to the 15th chapter: " And it was 
the third hour, and they crucified Him. And the super- 
scription of His accusation was written over, THE KING 
OF THE JEWS. And with Him they crucify two 

* The original words are TOC3 fnnb rr»n : which are almost the 
lame in signification with iavrbv krJvwue. Phil. 2. 7. 



158 



LECTURE VI. 



thieves ; the one on His right hand, and the other on His 
left. And the scripture was fulfilled, which saith, And 
IJe was numbered with the transgressors." (25 — 28). But 
the prophet takes also care to account for such an awful 
performance, and gives a brief but comprehensive reason, 
why the Holy and Just One had thus submitted to such 
an ignominious death ; he therefore adds, 

"And He bare the sin of many." 

The melancholy spectacle should indeed have recalled to 
the minds of the spectators their awful state under the law. 
How should they have begun at Moses and all the prophets, 
to investigate the things concerning their Messiah, and 
read in J esus on the cross, the words of Isaiah, ." And He 
bare the sin of many !" So did St. Paul. Read with me a 
passage in his epistle to the Galatians. " For as many as 
are of the works of the law are under the curse : for it is 
written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all 
things which are written in the book of the law to do them. 
But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, 
it is evident: for, The just shall live by faith. And the 
law is not of faith : but, The man that doeth them shall 
live in them. Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the 
law, being made a curse for us : for it is written, Cursed is 
every one that hangeth on a tree." (3. 10 — 13). This 
expression is also made use of by him in his epistle to 
the Hebrews, in the following passage, " So Christ was 
once offered to bear the sins of many ; and unto them 
that look for Him shall He appear the second time without 
sin unto salvation/'' (9. 28).* 



* The incidental way in which St. Paul introduces the words, is 
a striking proof not onl y that he, but the Hebrews to whom he wrote, 
received the modern Christian interpretation of the passage." — Dr, 
M' Caul's answer to Israel Avenged, by Orobio. 



ISAIAH LIII. 



159 



Moreover, in order to show that He alone was the theme 
of this important chapter from the beginning to the end, 
He interceded in behalf of His murderers, to convince them, 
as it were, that He was the Mediator of whom Isaiah spake 
at the end of this important prophecy. He prayed there- 
fore on the cross, saying, " Father, forgive them ; for they 
know not what they do to remind them, no doubt, of the 
last sentence of our text, 

" And He made intercession for transgressors." 

Oh ! how should the whole congregation of Israel have 
exclaimed, " Of a truth Thou art the Messiah, the Son of 
the living God !" Oh, how should they have implored, 
with the dying thief, for mercy ! I re-echo the words of 
a brother Jew of old, " Well spake the Holy Ghost by 
Esaias the prophet unto our fathers, saying, Go unto this 
people, and say, Hearing ye shall hear, and shall not 
understand ; and seeing ye shall see, and not perceive : 
for the heart of this people is waxed gross, and their ears 
are dull of hearing, and their eyes have they closed ; lest 
they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, 
and understand with their heart, and should be converted, 
and I should heal them;' (Acts 28. 26, 27). 

Dearly beloved, ye who have tasted that the Lord is good, 
ye who can say with the Apostle of old, that " Christ Jesus 
is made unto us of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctifica- 
tion and redemption," rejoice, yea, again I say rejoice in 
the Lord. Your Intercessor liveth. He always liveth to 
make intercession for you. Rejoice, for " Who is he that 
condemneth ? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is 
risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who 
also maketh intercession for us." (Horn. 8. 34). " Where- 
fore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that 
come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make 
intercession for them. " (Heb. 7. 25). 



160 



LECTURE VI. 



The Hebrew word yOD», which we have rendered " He 
made intercession, 11 is an instance of the imperfect or in- 
definite future, intimating that the intercession of the 
Messiah was not to be a transient act, or such an act as 
would be completed at the time of His death, but that it 
would consist in an action continuously carried on in future 
time.* 

I have only time to make a short application of the 
subject. My dear brethren, these things preach I unto you, 
that ye sin not. " And if any man sin, we have an Advo- 
cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ; and He 
is the propitiation for our sins : and not for ours only, but 
also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby we do 
know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 11 
(I John 2. 1—3). Amen. 



Henderson in loco. 



APPENDIX, 



Scriptural interpretation has undergone a great many 
changes in the Jewish Church, since the birth of Christ. 
The variations may be, however, properly divided into four 
different periods, viz. The first period, from the time of 
Jonathan ben Uziel to Rabbi Solomon J archi. The second 
period, from the time of that Rabbi to the glorious Re- 
formation. The third period, from the Reformation to 
the beginning of this century. And the fourth period, 
from the beginning of this century, or rather from the 
establishment of the " London Society for Promoting 
Christianity amongst the Jews/ 1 to the present day. A 
history of Jewish Scriptural interpretation might prove a 
most interesting work, as it might show how often their 
doctors and Rabbies varied their arguments and objections 
against Christianity. I must not, however, indulge at 
present in any extensive disquisition on this subject. 
Suffice it to say, just now, in reference to the 53rd chapter 
of Isaiah, that up to Rabbi Jarchi's time it was invariably 
interpreted as describing the sufferings of Messiah. But 
in consequence of frequent allusion being made to it, by 
Christian divines in their controversies with the Jews, 
which the Rabbies found inconvenient to answer; they 
determined to throw overboard all the former interpreta- 
tions of that chapter, and palmed on it several new ones, 
all of which are exceedingly meagre and inconsistent. 

To show, however, very briefly, that the modern Jewish 
exposition of that chapter is a novelty in Jewish theology, 
and a direct departure from the standard interpretation 

Y 



162 



APPENDIX, 



of their fathers, I shall quote a few passages of their 
ancient Rabbies as illustrative of my assertion. 

The first authority is that of the above mentioned Jonathan 
ben Uziel, who flourished about thirty years before the birth 
of our Lord. He paraphrases Isaiah 52. 13 thus, n^SP Nil 
*nr6 *ppm W) DTV NTWD H3y. There can be no 
doubt, therefore, that this ancient and justly celebrated 
praphrast considered the Messiah to be the object of the 
whole chapter. I shall next quote a passage from the 
Babylonian Talmud, which furnishes another testimony 
that the ancient Jews applied this remarkable chapter to 
the Messiah. In Tract Sanhedrin, fol. 98. col. 1. we 
read of a conversation held by Rabbi Joshua, the son of 
Levi with Elijah ; in the course of which the former in- 
quired :— nw ayTV) rtnrb rvb»v bv b-x 'rrwo via jid^k 

Rabbi Solomon Jarchi seems to have forgotten his commen- 
tum on Isaiah 53. when he was writing his commentary 
on this passage ; for he remarks on the above Talmud ic 
fable as follows : — - 

vtoa vfiam jtoi wbpd Vnrra sim nrai wan Ta aim myan uvbn ^iid 

How very inconsistent on the part of such a man as Rab- 
bi Solomon Jarchi ! How palpable that his object was 
wilfully to misinterpret that chapter from controversial 
motives. 

Turn over the leaf in the same Talmudic Tract, and 
you meet with the following passage : — - 

m nwfrb tonpn ivb xbx xnby na» xb 21 idk 
y y& w rfw n»a xbw n m ibttf nb rvvnb nba pnv 
tfru^ iDt^ w w its® yw n&a n *m rcr *o 
■w» iw win nba tow *m m now wdp vjs5 
•obb prn o w iDt^ rrptn p DTOb a^i tow dd 1 ? yr >6 
p« now n m wrnvn noa "p:m ntsi :wd dtod 
nDib yoj vraatpn i:tow d^d ^m^bi mi Kin w^rr 



APPENDIX. 



163 



There is another extraordinary passage in Rabbi Shimon 
Hadarshan's commentary on the Bible, called Yalfait 
Shimoni, which is in fact a compilation of the opinions of 
his ancient predecessors. The following are his observa- 
tions on Isaiah 52. 13. 

dw im nut toi dtp rrran ite n? naur taten run 

'DK:t^ mwn ok^d ra:n ip s ra "nw -idnd o m 
^to airw bmn in rvia *d idi** pi on 1 ? nwi ora:n 
idid wroiya iohd W30 Vms Kim jrrQan ]D 

yyrb -iron nin^i in 1 ? ttk piD-n ip^n/u o^rr rwnbvb 

:rpwDh i^d 1 ? inm man 

I could go on quoting passages without number, proving 
that the Christian interpretation of that chapter is in 
accordance with the ancient Jewish ones ; but the limits 
of this small volume will not allow of many quotations ; 
and there is the less need for it, since all the innovators, 
as Has7ii, Aben Ezra, KimcM, AharhancJc, Alshech, Sfc, 
acknowledge 

"dt myon -jta to s topi ra^p irw ns ViS r»n * 
I have been often asked " How do the Jews explain 
this chapter V As a general answer, therefore, I will 
quote at length Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel's exposition of 
it, as found in his Conciliator, which is in fact nothing 
more than a digest of the opinions of all the Jewish con- 
troversialists. He begins as follows : — 

"As the intention is solely to show our interpretation of 
it, for its better elucidation, I shall copy the Text verba- 
tim, with a paraphrase of my own, and then illustrate it 
by notes. 

" 1st. Isaiah prophecies the extreme felicity of Israel 
at the time of the Messiah. 



* Compare also pp. 15, 43, 54, 73, 76. As also Appendix B. 



164 



APPENDIX. 



" 2nd. The astonishment of all the nations at seeing 
them rise from their low state to such grandeur. 

" 3rd. How the nations will perceive their mistake, ac- 
knowledging themselves to be the sinners, and that they 
(Israel) are innocent. 

" 4th. What their various sects will experience. 

"5th. The patience of the people in supporting the 
troubles of the captivity, and the reward they will receive 
for their sufferings." 

TEXT. PARAPHRASE. 



Isa. 32. 13. Behold, my Servant 
shall prosper ( also understand ) ; he 
shall be exalted, extolled, and raised 
very high. 

14. As many were astonished at 
thee ; his visage was so much dis- 
figured more than man, and his form 
more than the sons of man. 

15. So he will cause many na- 
tions to speak of him : kings will 
shut their mouths : for what has 
not been related to them they will 
see, and what they have not heard 
they will understand. 

53. 1. "Who hath believed our 
report ? and upon whom hath the 
arm of the Lord been manifested ? 



2. He sprang up before him like 
a tender plant (or bough), and as a 
root from dry ground ; he had 
neither form nor comeliness ; and 
we saw him without an appearance 
we should covet. 

3. Despised and rejected of men ; 
a man of sorrows accustomed to 
disease ; and as they hid their faces 
from him, despised, and we esteemed 
him not. 

4. Surely he has borne our diseases, 
our sorrows he has suffered, and we 
esteemed him stricken, smitten of 
God, and afflicted. 



Isa. 52. 13. Behold, my servant 
Israel will understand, he shall be 
exalted, extolled, and very high at 
the coming of the Messiah. 

14. As many of the nations were 
astonished, O Israel, at the time of 
the captivity, saying, in truth, He 
is disfigured in countenance and 
form more than all mankind. 

15. So in that time they will 
speak of thy grandeur, even kings 
themselves astonished will close 
their mouths, for they will see what 
had never been told to them, and 
they will understand what they had 
not before heard of. 

53. 1. Had it been related (will 
the nations say) who would have 
believed what we see ? Look upon 
what a vile people the arm of the 
Lord hath manifested itself. 

2. He sprang up miraculously 
like a tender plant, and like a root 
from dry soil, for he had neither 
form nor comeliness ; we saw him, 
but so disfigured that it did not 
seem an appearance we should envy 
him for. 

3. Despised and rejected from 
the society of men, a man of sor- 
rows, habituated to suffer troubles 
among us, we hid our faces from 
him, despised, and unesteemed. 

4. But we now see that the dis- 
eases and troubles we ought in 
reason to have suffered, he bore and 
endured ; and we, consequently, 
thought that he was smitten and 
afflicted by God, 



APPENDIX , 



165 



5. And he was pained from our 
transgressions, crushed from our 
iniquities, our peace was a chastise- 
ment upon him, and by his stripes 
were we healed. 

6. All of us, like sheep, have gone 
astray ; we have turned aside every 
one to his own way, and the Lord 
hath made the iniquity of us all to 
meet upon him. 

7. He was oppressed and afflict- 
ed ; yet he opened not his mouth : 
he was carried like a lamb to the 
slaughter, and as a sheep before 
its shearers is dumb, so he opened 
not his mouth. 

8. He was taken from imprison- 
ment and judgment : and his gene- 
ration who shall declare ? for he 
was cut off from the land of the 
living, from the transgression of 
my people was the stroke upon 
them. 

9. "With the wicked his grave was 
made, and with the rich in their 
deaths ; although he had committed 
no violence, nor was deceit in his 
mouth. 

10. And the Lord was pleased 
to crush him ; He afflicted him : if 
he should put his soul for a trespass- 
offering, he shall see seed, he shall 
prolong days, and the will of the 
Lord in his hands shall prosper. 

11. From the trouble of his soul 
he shall see and be satisfied ; by his 
knowledge he shall justify the 
righteous, he shall be my servant 
to many whose iniquities he shall 
bear. 

12. Therefore will I distribute 
to him the many for his portion, 
he shall divide the spoil, because he 
gave up his soul unto death, and 
was numbered with transgressors : 
although he bore the sins of many 
and interceded for transgressors. 



5. He suffered the diseases and 
pains we deserved for our sins, he 
bore the chastisement, our peace, and 
felicity merited, but his troubles 
seem to have been a cure for us. 

6. The whole of us wandered like 
sheep, each followed his sect : and 
so the Lord seems to have trans- 
ferred on him the sin of us all. 

7. He was oppressed and 
afflicted : like a lamb, for us he was 
led to slaughter, and like a sheep 
before its shearers, being deprived 
of life and property, yet he was 
dumb, and opened not the mouth. 

8. From prison and these tor- 
ments he is already relieved ; and 
who would have thought when he 
was banished from the Holy Land 
of this his happy age. For the 
wickedness of my people (each na- 
tion will say) this blow came upon 
them. 

9. With malefactors he was in- 
terred, and suffered various tor- 
ments for his wealth, without having 
committed crime, nor used fraud 
with his mouth. 

10. But the Lord (says the pro- 
phet) was he who chose to disease 
and afflict him, to purify him : if he 
render his soul as an atonement he 
shall see his seed, enjoy length of 
days, and the will and determination 
of the Lord will prosper in his hand. 

11. For the trouble his soul 
suffered in the captivity ; he shall see 
good and be satisfied with days, 
with his knowledge my righteous 
servant Israel will justify many, and 
their burdens he will bear. 

12. Therefore I will give him 
his share of spoil among the many 
and powerful of Gog and Magog, 
because he gave himself up to 
death for the sanctification of my 
name, and with transgressors was 
numbered : he bore the offence 
of many, even praying for those 
transgressors from whom he had 
received injuries. 



166 



APPENDIX. 



Observations. 

Chap. 52. 13. " 4 Behold my servant shall prosper, &c.' 
4 Servant 1 was one of the distinguished titles the Lord 
gave to Israel, as Isaiah says in another place, * And thou, 
Israel, my servant.' Jeremiah, ' Fear thou not, Jacob, my 
servant.' Ezekiel, ' And they shall dwell in the land I 
have given to my servant Jacob ;' and David, 4 An heri- 
tage unto Israel His servant.' And as the prophet in this 
chapter praises the fidelity with which Israel, as faithful 
servants, were ever constant in the service of the Lord, 
suffering innumerable persecutions in this captivity ; he 
therefore applies it to them here. According to which, the 
sole subject of this prophecy is the people of Israel ; and 
that such is its true meaning, is infallibly proved by the 
connection of the preceding part of the chapter, where the 
prophet says, 4 Awake, awake ; put on thy strength, O 
Zion ; put on thy beautiful garments, O J erusalem, the 
holy city : for henceforth there shall no more come into thee 
the uncircumcised, nor the unclean. How beautiful upon 
the mountains are the feet of him who bringeth good 
tidings, who publisheth peace : the Messenger who bringeth 
good tidings, who publisheth salvation; who saith unto 
Zion, Thy God reigneth ! thy watchmen shall raise the 
voice ; with the voice together shall they sing ; for they 
shall see eye to eye, when the Lord shall bring again Zion : 
break forth into joy, shout together, ye ruins of Jerusalem : 
for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed 
Jerusalem : the Lord hath discovered the arm of his 
holiness in the eyes of all nations ; and all the ends of the 
earth shall see the salvation of our God : depart ye, depart 
ye, go ye out from thence, touch no unclean thing ; cleanse 
yourselves, ye who carry the vessels of the Lord ; for ye 
shall not go out in haste (as ye did from Egypt), nor go 
by flight : for the Lord will go before you ; and your 



APPENDIX. 



167 



gatherer will be the God of Israel,' and then continues 
' my servant shall prosper,' &c. 

" From this chapter to the end of the book, the prophet 
continues this proud subject, extolling that happy period, 
loaded with innumerable benefits ; for he commences the 
next, ' Sing, O barren, thou that didst not bear.' 

" This being established, it must be observed that the 
prophet, in the first verse, expresses this supreme state by 
four titles, bw> ' Shall prosper or understand,' DIT ' Shall 
be exalted,' win ' Shall be extolled,' and nm ' and be very 
high, 1 which attributes, as Don Isaac Abarbane rightly 
argued, signify the four prerogatives and dignities the 
people of Israel enjoyed while in the Holy Land, which 
they subsequently lost by the captivity, but will again 
recover at the time of the Messiah. 

" The first was that precise knowledge and profound wis- 
dom, as Moses says, ' Keep them and perform them, (i.e. 
the precepts), for this is your wisdom and understanding 
in the sight of the nations * * * only this nation is 
a wise and understanding people ;' a truth confirmed by 
innumerable writers, who acknowledge that all the learn- 
ing of the Greeks and Egyptians was derived from the 
Jews : Justin, Clement of Alexandria, and Theodoret, 
assert that all the best philosophers and poets knew, was 
pilfered from the Holy Scriptures ; for which reason they 
call Plato the Attic Moses, and the Athenian Moses. 
Clearchus, the Peripatetic, writes, that Aristotle gained 
the most of his learning from a Jew with whom he had 
much conversation ; Ambrose, that Pythagoras was by 
origin a Jew, and, like a pilferer, robbed them of many 
things ; Alexander Polyhistor, further, that he was a 
disciple of an Assyrian Nazarene, the prophet Ezekiel — ■ 
from such a master was such a disciple. Lastly, it is 
certain that Orpheus, Plato, Anaxagoras, Pythagoras, the 
Milesian Thales, Homer, and many other most learned 



168 



APPENDIX. 



men, derived their knowledge from the clear ocean of 
Moses, and the sages, and professors of his most Holy 
Law; for according to the Psalmist, 4 God revealed His 
words to them, a favour He did to no other nation.' 

" The second was the kingdom of the house of David, 
which was the only empire He established ; for all other 
princes 3 as the Romans, the Turks, and many much more 
ancient, gained their empires by tyranny and force of arms, 
but the only instance when the Sovereign Majesty Him- 
self granted it to mortals w r as to David, as the royal pro- 
phet says, 4 1 have made a covenant with my chosen, I 
have sworn unto David my servant, thy seed will 1 
establish for ever, and build thy throne to generation 
and generation ;' 4 With my holy oil have I anointed 
him: 

44 The third was the grade of prophecy, a prerogative 
conceded to no other nation. Moses wished that he and 
the people of Israel should in that be different from all other 
nations, as he begged the Lord, c Let me and thy people 
be separate from all the people that are upon the face of 
the earth,' which request was granted to him. — No pro- 
phet equalled him, nor did any other nation ever possess 
the gift of prophecy. And although Balaam, being a 
heathen, prophesied, it is well known to have been quite 
accidentally, as the history itself says D^n D'rf?N "ip'l 
4 And the Lord met Balaam,' which was either for the purpose 
that the great glory of Israel should be acknowledged by a 
heathen, who predicted all their future successes, and their 
wonderful and prosperous end at the advent of the Messiah, 
or for the condemnation of the heathen, that they might 
not make it as an excuse that they had no prophet who 
could instruct them in what was right, Balaam being in 
high repute with them. 

44 The fourth and last prerogative, was the connection 
with the Divinity and the special Divine Providence ; for 



APPENDIX 



169 



although the Lord left all other nations to the protection of 
angels and the celestial powers, He took the people of 
Israel under His charge and particular government, as He 
said to Abraham, 'to be a God to thee and to thy seed 

after thee, 1 and by Moses, ' the planets that the Lord 

thy God hath partitioned to all nations under the whole 
heaven, but the Lord hath taken you ;' Balaam, ' Lo, a 
people that shall dwell alone, and not be reckoned among 
the nations ;' and again in Deuteronomy, ' the Lord's 
portion is His people, Jacob is the lot of His inheritance \ 
' Happy art thou, 0 Israel, who is like unto thee, a 
people saved by the Lord ;' the Psalmist also, ' Happy 
are the people who are thus, happy the people whose God 
is the Lord \ and Jeremiah, 'the portion of Jacob is not 
like them, for He is the former of every thing, and Israel is 
the staff of His inheritance, the Lord of Hosts is His 
name.' 

" Who is ignorant, that, as unworthy ingrates, the Is- 
raelitish people have, in their captivity, lost all these pre- 
rogatives which they enjoyed while in the grace of the 
Lord ; now, although for the present that precise know- 
ledge is lost, there are no longer prophets ; they live 
deprived of King and Prince, and the Lord has hidden His 
face from them, yet when for His honour He shall return, 
when He shall restore Israel to its former state, at the 
advent of the Messiah, the whole will again be recovered, 
as all the prophets with one voice testify. Isaiah admirably 
recapitulates it in these four words : for bw* is derived 
from bDU? ' understanding,' signifying, that then with pro- 
found and sublime wisdom they will perfectly understand. 
D1T ' shall be exalted,' is applicable to royalty, as JJN D^T 
pVQ ' and His Kingdom shall be exalted more than A gag's.' 
N\i?3 f shall be extolled,' alluded to prophecy, as it says, 
121 Nltfft s the prophecy of the word of the Lord.' ruJ ' be 
raised very high,' represents the union and connection 

z 



170 



APPENDIX. 



with the Divine Sovereign Majesty, whose title is the 
4 The Most High. 1 " 

He continues : — Verse 14. ( As many were astonished 
at thee,' &c. The prophet addressing his speech to the 
people, shews that in the same manner as the nations of 
the world wondered at their low estate and misfortunes, 
even going so far as to accuse them with being disfigured, 
having a form unsuitable to man, and unlike other mortals, 
so at that period will they be astonished at their prosperity 
and elevated state," As he continues,— 

" Verse 15. 'So he will cause many nations to speak.' 
&c. For seeing the sudden change in the fortune of Israel, 
rising to extensive empire from so low a state, all the 
kings of the earth will be surprised, and discourse on the 
subject ; giving as a reason, that what had never been 
related to them of any nation, they will see in the people 
of Israel, whose grandeur none ever equalled, and what 
their false prognosticators had never told them, they will 
understand. Or 

DrrD ED'dVq I^Dp* ' Kings will shut their mouths,' speaking 
respectfully and properly of that people, whom they had 
previously known as captives, subject to the will of their 
imperious tyranny, as the prophet Micah also declares, 
4 Like the days of thy coming out of Egypt will I shew 
him marvellous things ; the nations shall see and be 
ashamed of all their powers, they shall put the hand on the 
mouth,' &c. 

Chap. 53. 1. ' Who hath believed our report,' &c. 
He explain the astonishment of the nations ; they will say, 
4 Who would have thought this novel prosperity of Israel 
which we now see, and that the arm of the Lord would 
manifest itself and act upon so low and degraded a 
people.' 

Verse 2. 4 He sprang up before him like a tender 
plant.' This springing up will be miraculous, and neither 



APPENDIX. 



171 



ordinarily nor naturally, but wonderfully, like a plant from 
its early shooting up, and a root in dry soil, where it 
shortly before seemed withered ; we see him in the same 
manner rise up, and resuscitate from the lingering suffer- 
ings of the captivity, we thought him divested of human 
form and beauty ; as such we looked upon him, and we 
considered him of that description, so that we neither 
envied, nor made any account of him. 

Verse 3. 4 Despised and rejected of men,' this is, he 
was in that low state that we deemed him completely un- 
worthy our society, considering it disgraceful to hold com- 
munion with him ; which the same prophet also says in 
another place, 4 Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Is- 
rael, his Holy One, to him that is despised in soul, to him 
whom the nations abhor, to the servant of rulers, Kings 
shall see and raise themselves, princes shall bow because 
that the Lord is faithful, the Holy One of Israel,'' &c. ; 
and the Royal Psalmist, 4 Thou makest us a reproach to 
our neighbours, a scorn and derision to those around us.' 

He continues. — 4 A man of sorrows accustomed to 
diseases,' i.e. to suffer the calamities of the captivity, 
compared in the Divine words to diseases ; as the said pro- 
phet says, 4 In the day the Lord bindeth up the breach 
of His people, He will heal the stroke of his wound 
Jeremiah, 4 Thy breach is mighty, thy wound painful, 
there are none who judge thy case for health, and there is 
no medicine of benefit to thee 4 But I will restore 
health unto thee, I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the 
Lord and in his Lamentations, 4 Thy breach is great 
like the sea, who can heal thee C and Hosea, 4 Come, let 
us return to the Lord, for He hath torn, and He will heal 
us ; He hath smitten, and He will bind us up/ 

4 As they hid their faces from him (or from them), 

we despised, and we esteemed him not.' That is, we made 
as if we did not see him, not to act courteously towards 



172 



APPENDIX. 



him, which arose from the light consideration we held him 
in : or from mistrust and bashfulness we kept ourselves 
out of sight. And there is no difficulty in the Israelitish 
nation being termed in this text tf^tt ' a man ' in the 
singular, as in the Divine words, when treating of Israel 
collectively, this individual term is frequently used as ' the 
people, the man (Heb. a man) of Israel." 4 And the 
men (Heb. ]D*ti a man) of Israel swore at Mizpah.' ' And 
Saul and the men (Heb. ttf'tt a man) of Israel gathered 
together and in many other passages. 

Verse 4. & Surely he hath borne our diseases, 1 means, 
we, ourselves disbelievers, more justly merited the troubles 
and calamities this innocent people have suffered during 
the captivity ; for we were so blind, that we did not con- 
sider him wounded, smitten, and afflicted by God on our 
account, but that all this came on them for keeping them- 
selves apart from what we considered the truth, in not 
admitting or joining with us in our religion. 

Verse 5. ' And he was pained from our transgressions, 
crushed from our iniquities,' is as if it said, but it is quite 
the contrary, for it was not from God hating him, but our 
wickedness alone was the cause of his troubles. 6 The 
chastisement (or discipline) of our peace was upon 
him/ as grief always accompanies pleasure, the chastise- 
ment of or the accompaniment of this happiness appeared 
to fall on him. Or when in the enjoyment of peace, ene- 
mies were wanting, we immediately turned our arms 
against this people, and what we established for the 
discipline and good government of our states, all redounded 
in resolutions against him, decreeing death, banishment, 
and confiscation of property, as experience daily shew&. 
Or otherwise, the doctrine taught by our preachers was, 
that our tranquillity depended on our being irritated against 
him, and ultimately that we should find health in wounding 
him. but. 



APPENDIX. 



173 



Verse 6. ' All of us like sheep have gone astray, we 
have turned aside, every one to his own way/ i.e. they will 
not only acknowledge the ill treatment and bodily inflic- 
tions they have made Israel suffer, but also their errors, 
attributing their wickedness thereto, each in his way, 
following a new sect, which is what the prophet Jeremiah 
says, ' Gentiles shall come to you from the ends of the 
earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited 
lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit.' 

4 And the Lord hath made the iniquity of us all meet 
upon him, 1 that is, we ourselves have erred ; they followed 
the truth, yet they suffered the punishments we deserved. 

Verse 7. ' He was oppressed and afflicted.' We de- 
prived them of their property as a tribute, and martyrised 
their bodies with the most cruel tortures. ' Yet he 
opened not his mouth : he was carried like a lamb to the 
slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is dumb, so 
he opened not his mouth.' The experience of this is seen 
daily, particularly in the cruelties of the Inquisition, and 
the false testimony raised against them to take the wool, 
and rob them of their property, as the Psalmist says, 
' Thou hast given us (0 Lord) as sheep for food,' and 
again, ' For thy sake are we killed every day ; we are 
accounted as sheep for the slaughter,' patiently suffering 
daily these tyrannical acts and severe calamities. 

Verse 8. ' He was taken from imprisonment and 
judgment.' These two words have each different mean- 
ings, as it is w T ell known to those acquainted with the 
Hebrew language, for means ' kingdom, detention, or 
imprisonment," and iDDtt?0 is ''judgment or punishment. 1 
According to the first sense, it says, — This reduced and low 
people whom we considered almost void of human form, 
its origin was not vile, common, and of no renown, for it 
was composed of an opulent kingdom, and admirable 
senate, and tribunal of justice, (the Senhedrin). ' And 



174 



APPENDIX. 



his generation,' or the felicity he enjoyed in former times, 
now vanished from the Holy Land, 4 Who shall declare 1 
or relate \ 

Or, also, He is already released from prison, and freed 
from punishment, and who would have thought or spoke 
of the happiness of this generation and present time, 
when he was banished from the land of the living, that is, 
the land of promise, (as it is termed in the Divine words) 
4 1 will walk before the Lord in the land of the living 
for our wickedness has been the sole cause of his expulsion 
from the country. It must be observed that the word 1ft 1 ? 
here used, bears the same signification as CDilb ' to them,' 
as every one acquainted with the Hebrew Grammar knows. 
Therefore, it is evidently seen, that although the prophet 
speaks in the singular, and of a single people, it is of all 
the children of Israel. 

Verse 9. ' With the wicked His grave was made, and 
with the rich in their deaths.' The nations continue, We 
have frequently condemned this people to death, and buried 
them with malefactors, and with the rich, VniQn 4 in their 
various deaths; 1 certainly, to take away their property, 
we raised against them innumerable false testimonies, and 
murdered them, without their having committed any crime, 
or there being any guilt imputable to them, except having 
accumulated wealth, as he continues, 4 Although he had 
committed no DftH violence, nor was deceit in his mouth,' 
that is, allowing them to plunder him of property he had 
not stolen, and to be killed for the sanctification of the 
Lord, and not even verbally acknowledging any other 
religion. 

Verse 10. 4 And the Lord was pleased to crush him.' 
From this verse forward the prophet speaks in the name of 
the Lord, and relates the reason why these troubles are 
suffered, and the fruit to be hoped from them ; and firstly 
says, that the determination and will of the Lord has been 



APPENDIX. 



175 



to crush them, and render them infirm, diseased with such 
innumerable calamities, that, purified by those means, they 
may become worthy of so much felicity : so he continues, 
' If he should put his soul for CDUM a trespass-offering, (or 
expiation) surrendering it in support of the law, or should 
he acknowledge himself guilty, and becoming repentant, 
4 he shall see seed,' that is, they shall multiply infinitely, 
as Ezekiel said, 4 I will increase them men, like a flock (of 
sheep),' and Zechariah, ' And to the land of Gilead and 
Lebanon will I bring them, and it shall not be sufficient 
for them,' and before them, Moses said, 4 And he 
will do thee good, and multiply thee more than thy 
fathers.' He continues, 4 He will prolong days.' 
This the prophet elsewhere confirms, 4 as the leaves 
of the tree (that is, the tree of life) are the days 
of my people Zechariah, 4 And every man with his staff 
in his hand from multitude of days, (old age).' Lastly, 
4 And the will of the Lord,' which is to oppress and afflict 
him with punishment for his greater glory, 4 in his hand 
shall prosper,' for the intent and end to which they are 
directed will be attained. Or, it will say, 4 The will of 
the Lord,' which is, that all who save themselves and come 
to His holy knowledge through his hand and means will 
prosper. 

Verse 11. 4 From the trouble of his soul he shall see 
and be satisfied,' means to say, at that happy period Israel 
will see an end to the trouble of his soul and be satisfied, 
different to the time Moses spoke of, 4 Ye shall sow your 
seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it,' because by 
enjoying everlasting peace and universal empire, they shall 
peaceably enjoy the produce of the Holy Land as Moses 
said ; and Isaiah, 4 The Lord hath sworn by His right 
hand, and by the arm of His strength, Surely I will no 
more give thy corn for food to thine enemies ; and the 
sons of the stranger shall no more drink thy wine for which 



176 



APPENDIX 



thou hast laboured.' And Amos, ' And they shall plant 
vineyards, and drink the wine thereof, they shall also make 
gardens and eat their fruit.' Or it may say, for the 
troubles his soul suffered in the troubles and misfortunes of 
the captivity, he will see seed, and be satisfied with days, 
(of his existence). 

'By his knowledge he shall justify the righteous, he 
shall be my servant to many,' that is, Israel termed ' a 
righteous people, a holy nation, 1 bringing them with fra- 
ternal love from their vain sects to the true religion, even 
while ' whose iniquities,' he shall bear patiently, suffering 
the tyrannies of their wickedness. Or otherwise he may 
say, At that time, my servant Israel will justify and make 
many nations meritorious, as the prophet Micah says, 
fc And many nations shall say, Come, let us go up to the 
mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of 
Jacob, and He will teach us his ways, and we will walk in 
His paths ;' and Zechariah, ' Ten men shall take hold 
of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go 
with you; for we have heard God is with you,' whose 
iniquities he shall bear, for, being a more holy and 
religious people, a kingdom of priests, he will take 
charge of the spiritual administration, for the observance 
of the law; as Moses said to Aaron, 4 thou and thy sons, 
and thy father's house with thee, shall bear the iniquity 
of the sanctuary, fcc.' 

Verse 12. 8 Therefore will I distribute to him the 
many, for his portion, he shall divide spoil with the mighty.' 
In this verse he treats on the last conflict, the prelude to 
Israel's felicity, that is, the war of Gog and Magog so 
extolled by the prophets, in which many nations will join 
(as stated by Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Joel, with immense 
riches, of which the prophet Zechariah speaks, saying, 
" And the wealth of all the nations around shall be 
gathered together, gold, silver, and apparel in great 



APPENDIX. 



177 



abundance f and in another verse, ' Thy spoil (that is, 
what they despoiled thee of) shall be divided among thee 
and Isaiah, 'Ye shall eat the riches of the nations:' 
these, then, are the many and mighty whose spoil the Lord 
promises they shall divide. 

6 Because he gave up his soul unto death, and was 
numbered with transgressors, although he bore the sins of 
many, and interceded for transgressors.' The prophet 
here attributes four merits to them, for which they justly 
deserve the reward of that felicity ; and again, in form 
of a compendium, recapitulates the contents of the 
chapter. 

1st. Because they delivered themselves up to death for 
the sanctification of the Lord's name and the observance 
of the law. 

fnd. Because they were reckoned among the wicked, 
patiently enduring being called heretics. 

3rd. Having borne the sin of many, the wickedness and 
tyranny of others falling on their shoulders. 

4th. Lastly, in observing the precept of Jeremiah, 
' Seek the welfare of the city whither I have caused you 
to be carried away captive f of which they are so tena- 
cious, as constantly to pray for the health of the prince, 
and peace of the state wherein they reside, often for the 
welfare of those from whom they are experiencing perse- 
cution and injury, which is not only meritorious, but a 
convincing proof of the submission and resignation with 
which they bear the yoke of captivity, and the sufferings 
of its troubles, from the hand of the Lord. 1 ' — Lindd's 
translation, Vol. II. pp. 168 — 177. 

There is no need for a refutation of the above interpre- 
tation, as it is presumed the reader will peruse the whole 
volume, and furnish the refutation himself. 



178 



APPENDIX, 



B. 

There is another prayer used on the feast of Passover, 
containing a passage, which proves likewise, beyond all 
contradiction, that the ancient Jews attributed both the 
52nd and 53rd chapters of Isaiah to the Messiah. The 
passage is as follows : — 

ntno VP rnsptf iy nn rra 

mn: m:n Ntwi dyt 
nr D s n"i d^i nwi ^atcp 

David Levi in his translation of that Prayer Book into 
English, states in a note that this verse refers to "the true 
Messiah.'" The same is stated in almost all the Jewish 
editions of that Prayer Book. In fact, there is no necessity 
for such a note, as Dr. M'Caul justly observes, " Every 
Jew who is in the habit of saying his prayers, knows that 
they are understood of the Messiah. Prayer ought to be 
the language of the heart * * * I expect from every 
Jew and Jewess who visit the synagogue during the feast 
of the Passover, and on the clay of Atonement, to admit 
without hesitation, that Isaiah 52. 13 ; 53. 12, refers to 
the Messiah ; and can, I confess, feel but little respect for 
the religion of those who deny in controversy, what they 
admit to God in prayer. If any Jew chooses to adopt a 
peculiar opinion, and assert that this passage does not 
refer to the Messiah, his first business is to abstain from 
the synagogue worship, his second to enter into controversy, 
not with Christians, but with Simeon ben J ochai, Jonathan 
ben Uzziel, the compilers of the Talmud, and of the Jewish 
Liturgy, in short, with the whole Jewish people, who have 
asserted, and still publicly assert, that Messiah is the 
subject of the prophecy. Those who are willing to abide 
by Jewish antiquity, must confess that the present Chris- 
tian interpretation is the true one, and therefore that 



APPENDIX. 



179 



Messiah has been announced as an atonement for the sins 
of the people.' 1 — Dr. M'CauFs Answer to "Israel Avenged, 
ly Don Isaac Orobio? pp. 34, 64. 

C. 

During the conference held in Aldermanbury, London, 
between Jews and Christians, in the years of 1832, 33, 34, 
for the purpose of discussing the Evidences of Christianity ; 
the former attempted to urge the often repeated and ex- 
ploded objection of Kabbi Isaac, in his book rtJIQtt pirn 
namely, that Jesus was not the son of David. The objectors 
may have been misled into the repetition of that argument, 
in consequence of the omission of a certain passage in the 
later editions of the Talmud, to the effect, that Jesus was 
closely allied to the Royal family. The passage is, how- 
ever, retained in the older editions. I have now before 
me two copies, the Berlin and Frankfort Ondeodre one, 
(printed A.M. 5501, or A.D. 1741) ; and the Amsterdam 
one (printed A.M. 5405, or A.D. 1645.) In the former 
copy the passage alluded to is omitted, whilst it is retained 
in the latter. Though the passage itself is fabulous it may 
be worthy of quotation, as it will show that the objectors 
were not only ignorant of the Christian doctrines, but also 
of their own traditions. Here is the passage : — 

*w w -a vjfifr *m» mam wb imaVn nosn nnyn 
jhvp ^ bww b'D m rprm nwn by bp&b 
ima^-m mn? "6 *6i vby -\zb*\ ni> not b 
Kin jtdd Kin rvot •oian -in *nnp.ni xbw hdb 
nnpi w vbt* vby noa/i nb) b^nn xb ion Miami 

Tract Sanhedrin, fol. 43. col. 1. 
D. 

There is an extraordinary letter extant, which is stated 
by the monkish authors to have been written by Publius 
Lentulus, to the Emperor Tiberius, in the days of our 



180 



APPENDIX. 



Saviour, which purports to depict our Redeemer's personal 
appearance. As this is the only legend of antiquity which 
pretends to describe the personal appearance of Jesus 
when on earth, it may be interesting to the curious, who 
are not already acquainted. with it ; I therefore transcribe 
it here. 

" There has appeared a man here who is still living, 
named Jesus Christ, whose power is extraordinary. He 
has the title given to him of the great prophet ; his dis- 
ciples call him the Son of Grod. He raises the dead, and 
heals all sorts of diseases. He is a tall, well proportioned 
man; there is an air of serenity in his countenance, which 
attracts at ones the love and reverence of those who see 
him. His hair is of the colour of new wine, from the roots 
to his ears, and from thence to the shoulders it is curled, 
and falls down to the lowest part of them. Upon the 
forehead it parts in twj, after the manner of the Naza- 
renes. His forehead is flat and fair, his face without any 
defect, and adorned with a very graceful vermillion ; his 
air is majestic and agreeable. His nose and his mouth 
are well proportioned, and his baard is thick and forked, 
of the colour of his hair ; his eyes are grey and extremely 
lively ; in his reproofs he is terrible, but in his exhortations 
and instructions amiable and courteous ; there is some- 
thing wonderfully charming in his face, with a mixture of 
gravity. He is never seen to laugh, but he has been 
observed to weep. He is very straight in stature ; his 
hands are large and spreading, and his arms very beautiful. 
He talks little, but with great gravity, and is the handsom- 
est man in the world." — Bib. Bepos. Vol. 2. p. 368. See 
also Barnes in loco. 

E. 

To this very day, the Jews residing in popish countries 

dare scarcely be seen in the streets during Lent, and 



APPENDIX. 



181 



especially during Easter-week, in consequence of the many 
insults offered them. In many towns in Poland there 
exists a hateful custom amongst professing followers of 
Christ — fraught with no small degree of blasphemy — to 
bury a crucifix on the evening of Good Friday, and a 
guard is set to watch that it be not stolen by the Jews ; on 
the following Sunday it is pretended that the self-same 
crucifix rose of itself from its hiding place, after which an 
address is delivered similar to the one quoted in the text. 
Great are the indignities, which are consequently offered to 
the poor Jews. This same season is equally a time of 
trouble to the house of Jacob in Russia. In the days of 
Alexander, Emperor of Russia, one of his subjects after 
leaving his place of worship, on a Good Friday, met a Jew 
in the street, whom he murdered in cold blood. He was 
interrogated concerning his savage procedure ; to which he 
replied, that the J ew was a descendent of that nation who 
murdered his Lord. The affair reached the ears of the 
Czar, who ordered the murderer to be put to death, ob- 
serving, that as the zealous christian, by his pious murder- 
ous rage, has, in all probability, obtained absolution of all 
his sins, it would be well for him to go to heaven (?) at 
once, for fear he might by some sin forfeit entrance there. 

F. 

" Josephus says, that there were at that time (which was 
about fifty-seven or fifty-eight years after the nativity of 
Christ) many enchanters and deceivers, who persuaded the 
common people to follow them into the desert, where they 
promised to work miracles, &c. He says that the country 
of Judea was stored with such ; so intent were they to find 
out their Messiah, and so persuaded that that was the time 
of His coming. The two brothers, Asinceus, and Anileus, 
both weavers, had mighty successes, but were at last des- 
troyed, and were the occasion of the destruction of many 



182 



APPENDIX. 



of the Jews, who followed them about forty years after the 
birth of Christ. And about seventy-four years after, 
another weaver, one Jonathan, led many of the Jews after 
him into the wildernesses, where he promised to shew them 
signs and wonders." — Leslie's Short and Easy Method 
with the Jews, pp. 28, 27. 

G. 

The following is an extract from a letter which I have 
received from a young brother of mine, who is still in Poland, 
in reference to modern Jewish opinions on the book of 
Leviticus : — 

i)t±>m d^i nw anw nro im by win pjnno rtn 
rrnn bin rrfos nnai : mnb min nmD dwi y^n ]ynb 
un pifr was ttwn wapn :rra Din n/yn itw* unn *6i 
aip*) isd nni dot to to w iwwn ^n to*? 
/nntc6 id^jd i*?wm iftnn ^ : n^on nwn ny rvrv pas 
yrra »: wip iwa iynm ra# m ox : dtt mpoo 
pi ^ rrotoi ^aw n mi j-mnpt> dt hnsd 
iwn ivj np 8 ? ^ Dmyn ^* urDD raisai lprn 

J"D1 KB*3 p^D^ "11 HD12 

H. 

" The great effort of the Jewish interpreters has been to 
ascertain to whom the passage can be made, with any show 
of probability, to apply. The great mass agree that it is 
not to be applied to the Messiah, and this is now the pre- 
vailing opinion among them. 

"Among the more modern Jewish expositors who agree 
that the passage is not to be applied to the Messiah, the 
following opinions have prevailed. 

1. The most commonly received opinion is, that it refers 
to the Jewish people. This is the opinion of Jarchi, Aben 
Ezra, Kimchi Abarbanel, and Lipmam. According to 
them, the prophecy describes the condition of the Jews in 
their present calamity and exile ; the firmness with which 



APPENDIX. 



183 



they endure it for the honour of God, and resist every 
temptation to forsake His law and worship ; and the pros- 
perity, honour, and glory, which they shall obtain in the 
time of their redemption. In ch. 53. v. 1 — 10, the 
heathen are regarded as speaking, and making an humble 
and penitential confession, that they have hitherto mis- 
taken the people of God, and unjustly despised them on 
account of their sufferings, since it now appears from their 
exaltation that those sufferings have not been inflicted on 
them on account of their sins. 

2. Others take the appellation, " Servant of Jehovah, 1 ' 
in the passage to mean the pious portion of the nation 
taken collectively, and regarded as making a kind of vi- 
carious satisfaction for the ungodly. This class of inter- 
preters among the Jews however has been small. They 
refer it to those among them who endure much affliction 
and suffering, but more especially to those who are publicly 
put to death, They mention particularly Rabbi Akiba, 
as one who suffered martyrdom in this manner. This 
interpretation retains indeed the essential idea of substitu- 
tion, which runs through the passage, and it is not im- 
probable that it is on this account that it has found so 
little favour with the modern Jews, since they reject with 
abhorrence the whole doctrine of vicarious sufferings as 
designed to make an atonement for others. 

3. A few others among the Jews make the passage refer 
to an individual. Abarbanel, besides supposing that it refers 
to the Jewish people in general, suggests also that it may 
refer particularly to Isaiah. Rabbi Saadias Haggaon ex- 
plained the whole as referring to Jeremiah. Still the 
passage is so plain in its general meaning, the reference to 
the Messiah is so obvious, that the Rabbins have not been 
able with all their ingenuity to propose an interpretation 
that shall be entirely satisfactory to their nation. It has 
probably been the means of the conversion of more Jews 



184 



APPENDIX. 



from the errors of their system to Christianity than any 
other portion of their Scriptures. We know that, as it 
was explained and applied by Philip, it was the means of 
the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch. Acts 8. 27 — 40. 
And so Jo. Isaac Levita, a learned Jew, says it was the 
means of first leading him to the Christian religion. ' I 
frankly confess, 1 says he, 4 that this chapter first con- 
ducted me to the Christian faith. For more than a 
thousand times I read this chapter, and accurately com- 
pared it with many translations, I found that it contained 
a hundred more mysteries respecting Christ, than are 
found in any version.' Many similar instances occur, says 
Hengstenberg, in the reports of Missionaries among the 
Jews. 

" As a specimen of the manner in which the exposition 
of the Bible has been conducted in Germany, we may 
just refer to the opinions which have prevailed in the in- 
terpretation of this, the plainest and most splendid of all 
the prophecies pertaining to the Messiah. 

1. Comparatively the greatest number of non-Messianic 
interpreters make the whole Jewish people the subject. 
A large number of German expositors, whose names may 
be seen in Hengstenberg's Christol. 1. p. 494; have adopted 
this view. The only difference between this interpretation 
and that adopted by the later Jews is, that the German 
critics suppose it refers to the Jews in the Babylonish 
exile, while the Jews suppose that it refers to their nation 
suffering in their present exile. 

2. It was held by Eckermann that it refers to the 
Jewish nation in the abstract, in opposition to its individual 
members. In other words, it seems to have been held that 
the nation in the abstract was guilty and was suffering, 
while the individual members were innocent, and escaped 
suffering and punishment. 

3. It has been held that it refers to the pious part of 



APPENDIX. 



185 



the Jewish people as contrasted with the ungodly. This 
opinion was defended by Paulus. His view is the follow- 
ing: — ' The pious part of the Jewish people were punished 
and carried into captivity with the ungodly, not on account 
of their own sins, but the sins of the latter. The ungodly 
inferred that the hope of the pious that Jehovah would help 
them was in vain, but as the exile came to an end, and the 
pious returned, they saw that they had erred, and that 
their hope was well grounded. They deeply lament, there- 
fore, that they have not long ago done penance.' 

4. One author has maintained that the Jewish priest- 
hood is the subject of the prophecy, but in this he stands 
alone. 

5. It has been maintained by others, that the prophets 
collectively, are referred to in the passage. This was at 
first the opinion of Rosenmuller, but was abandoned by 
him, and was then defended by De Wette, and is main- 
tained by Gesenius. 

6. Others have referred it to some individual. Thus 
Grotius supposes that Jeremiah is meant. Augusti sup- 
posed that Uzziah was intended. Others that Hezekiah 
was meant ; and others that Isaiah here referred to himself ; 
and others that it refers to some unknown prophet slain 
by the Jews in their exile ; and others that it refers to the 
Maccabees ! 

" These strange and absurd opinions are specimens of 
the unhappy manner of exposition which has prevailed 
among the German Neologists ; and they are specimens 
too of the reluctance of the human 'mind to embrace the 
truth as it is in Jesus, and of its proneness to the wildest 
aberrations, where mere human reason, and wild specula- 
tion are suffered to take the reins in the interpretation of 
the Bible. Perhaps there is scarcely to be found an in- 
stance of interpretation that is more fitted to humble us 
in regard to the proneness of men to err, and to embrace 

2 B 



186 



APPENDIX. 



the wildest opinions, than in these modes of explaining 
this beautiful portion of Isaiah. And there is not to be 
found any where a more striking proof of the reluctance 
of the human mind to contemplate the life and sufferings 
and death of the Redeemer of the world, or to embrace 
the great and glorious truth, that men can be saved only 
by the vicarious sufferings of the Son of God. — Barnes on 
Isaiah in loco. 

I. 

The Jews in their venomous railings against Jesus, the 
Holy One, still bear witness, that such was the character of 
Him, whom they rejected and still reject, viz. that " like a 
sheep before her shearers is dumb, and He opened not His 
mouth. The following is the account given of Jesus' be- 
haviour before His execution, in that malignant book, 
" Sepher Toldoth Jes!™/' 

bz rra *6 ™*n owta imm too bv 

IBntn 1TD DJ1D W D^ttp "Hp*! JTtW 1^1^33 

-nwoi Pin vain ^ "im on 1 ? iftW) hidsi by 
tfiraa urn ^p? tn ana "by Dmb bm b^pi pyx nrw 
)b)p jin rtr> urn ~ yDin ^iptcp s Nrj^^ wot 

D*r6** p ^ V1DOT J JID^ ^DOT Tin 

^ot w idot wtd nrten n 1 ? nnb run* 

For an account of that book I would refer the reader to 
the first number of " The Theologian." The following are 
some of the remarks on it :— 

" Now it is impossible to read this fable without perceiv- 
ing that, vile and infamous as it is, it yet presents a power- 
ful testimony, even by the admission of the Jews, to the 
truth of Jesus. Eeality and fiction are so closely blended 
together in it, that it is clear, that one has arisen out of 
the other. The fiction would never have been framed so 
like the truth, in some of its leading features, unless there 



APPENDIX. 



187 



had been a strong antecedent ground for it. The Jew has 
evidently written, not only on a received history, but on a 
history which he believed to be true. He found certain 
properties attributed to Jesus, and he gave free credit to 
their existence. He does not deny the fact, he is content 
to pervert its principle. He does not denounce, as false, 
the common opinion that such a person lived, he does not 
reject the idea, that He performed certain miracles, he does 
not contradict the violence of His death, nor His betrayal 
by one of His own nation. These things he admits. He 
allows that the Christian world have just and tenable 
reasons for their belief in preternatural powers of their Re- 
deemer, and that so many of the Jews themselves became 
his disciples, in consequence of those powers, that they 
may be fairly characterised as " multitudes." 

Dr. M'Caul in his pamphlet entitled " The Doctrine and 
Interpretation of the Fifty Third Chapter of Isaiah, 1 ' ably 
disproves the applicability of this chapter to the Jewish 
people, from the contents of the seventh verse. He says, 
page 15, " Another characteristic ascribed to the person 
here described, is equally inapplicable to the Jewish na- 
tion : it is this, a pa/tient endurance of injuries, a non- 
resistence of evil : verse 9, " He was oppressed and He 
was afflicted : yet he opened not His mouth : He was 
brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before 
her shearers is dumb, so he opened not His mouth. 1 ' Here 
is one described who bears all sorts of affliction and oppres- 
sion, without making the slightest resistance; without 
even opening His mouth to utter reproach ; one who has 
the meekness and gentleness of a lamb, the inoffensiveness 
of a sheep. Surely this does not apply to the Jews. A 
very hasty glance at their history is sufficient to strip them 
of all pretensions to the character of an unoffending lamb. 
As long as ever they had the power they did resist bitterly 
and bloodily. We freely acknowledge that their provoca- 



188 



APPENDIX. 



tions were great. We have no wish to defend the wicked- 
ness of Christian nations. We grant that their treatment 
of the Jews is a blot and a stain. But that is not the 
question. The question is, Did the Jews bear all the 
oppression heaped upon them like lambs ? Did they suffer 
evil without resisting it ? History answers in the negative. 
The history of the Jewish captivity for the first seven 
centuries, is a history of a series of insurrections, fierce 
and violent, against the nations. How desperate was the 
resistance to the Roman power, which brought on the 
destruction of the temple by Titus ! But when that was 
destroyed, the spirit of resistance still remained. A.D. 
115, the Jews of Oyrene rebelled and murdered 220,000 
Lybians : and it was not until after several bloody battles 
that they submitted. A.D. 116, the Jews in Mesopotamia 
rebelled, and it was necessary to send the greatest General 
of the empire to meet them. Soon after the Jews of Cy- 
prus rebelled and massacred 240,000 of the inhabitants ; 
a powerful army was necessary to bring them to obedience. 
A.D. 132, Ben Chozba appeared in the character of 
Messiah at the head of an army, ready to shake off the 
Roman yoke. R. Akiva, one of those looked upon by the 
Rabbins as most righteous, supported his resistance to the 
Roman authority ; a bloody war was the consequence, and 
it was only by force that this insurrection was put down. 
A.D. 415, the Jews of Alexandria revolted. A.D. 522, 
the Jews of Persia revolted under the conduct of R. Mid, 
or Miz, at their head, and declared war against the king 
of Persia. A.D. 535, the Jews in Csesarea rebelled. 
A.D. 602, the Jews at Antioch. A.D. 624, the Jews in 
Arabia took up arms against Mahomet. A.D. 613, they 
joined the arms of Chosroes, when he made himself master 
of Jerusalem, and put thousands to death. It is not our 
purpose to create ill feeling against the Jews, who have 
every where been badly used ; but these traits of their 



APPENDIX. 



189 



history show that they have resisted evil — that their cha- 
racter in captivity has not been that of a lamb ; that, 
therefore, the 53rd of Isaiah cannot be applied to the 
Jewish nation." 

J. 

The following statement I conceive to have special re- 
ference to the first part of Isaiah 53. 12. " Therefore 
being by the right hand of God exalted, and having re- 
ceived of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He 
hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear." (Acts. 
2. 33). St. Peter's address to the cripple in the temple, 
to whom he said, " Silver and gold have I none ; but such 
as I have I give thee : in the name of Jesus Christ of 
Nazareth rise up and walk," (Acts 3. 6.) has reference to 
Isaiah 53. 4, 5. The following passage has palpable re- 
ference to the whole of that chapter : " But those things, 
which God before had shewed by the mouth of all His 
prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so fulfilled. 1 '' 
(Acts 3. 18). Peter ends his bold address before the high 
priest, saying' " Neither is there salvation in any other : 
for there is none other name under heaven given among 
men, whereby we must be saved." (Acts 4. 12). As also 
his second address, "Him hath God exalted with His 
right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give re- 
pentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins," (Acts 5. 31.) 
which is the doctrine of the same chapter, as express- 
ly taught in the 11th verse. When Peter said to the poor 
Eneas, who was sick of the palsy for eight years, " Eneas, 
Jesus Christ maketh thee whole," (Acts 9. 34). What 
else had he in his view but the 4th and 5th verses above 
alluded to? The same chapter St. Peter alluded to especi- 
ally when he addressed Cornelius, " To Him give all the 
prophets witness, that through His name whosoever be- 
lieveth in Him shall receive remission of sins."" Acts 10. 43. 



190 



APPENDIX. 



Compare now 1 Pet. 1. 11, 12, 18, 19, 20, 23 ; 2. 21—25 ; 
3. 18 ; 4. 13, 14, &c. 

K. 

" DN, if so far from being here a particle of doubt, 
rather expresses the certainty of what is affirmed ; only 
the statement is put hypothetically, for the purpose of laying 
down the condition of the following predictions respecting 
the success of the Messiah's undertaking. It forms the 
point of transition from the use of Preterite to that of the 
Future tense. His sacrifice was still future, but it should 
certainly be presented, and issue in the specified results." 
Henderson, in loco. 

I conceive this to be the sense of the word DN in Jacob's 
vow, and the narrative should therefore run thus in the 
English version : — " Jacob vowed a vow, saying, Surely 
[not '*/"'] God will be with me, and will keep me in the 
way where I am going, and will give me bread to eat, and 
raiment to put on, and I shall return to my father's house 
in peace ; and Jehovah shall be my God." (Gen. 28. 20, 21.) 

L. 

The learned author of the "Atonement' 1 has devoted no 
less than twenty pages to the confutation of the Socinian 
Expositors' views on this passage. I expect that no reader 
will think an apology needful, on my part, for giving a 
lengthy quotation of the Archbishop's examination and 
result of the same. 

" Dr. Priestly indeed, although he professes to collect 
4 All the texts, in which Christ is represented as a sacrifice 
either expressly or by plain reference ' has not been able 
to find so many to this purpose, as have been here referred 
to. After the most careful research, he could discover but 
a very few ; and of these he remarks, that c the greater 
part are from one Epistle, which is allowed in other res- 



APPENDIX. 



191 



pects to abound with the strongest figures, metaphors, and 
allegories f and these being rejected, ' the rest he says 
are too few to bear the very great stress that has been laid 
upon them r 1 — and thus they are all discarded with one 
sweeping remark, that they carry with them the air of 
figure, and that had Christ's death been considered, as the 
intended antitype of the sacrifices under the law, this 
would have been asserted in the fullest manner, and would 
have been more frequently referred to. We are here fur- 
nished with an instance, of the most expeditious, and 
effectual method, of evading the authority of Scripture. 
First, overlook a considerable majority, and particularly 
of the strongest texts, that go to support the doctrine you 
oppose : in the next place assert, that of the remainder, a 
large proportion belongs to a particular writer, whom you 
think proper to charge with metaphor, allegory, &c. &c. 
then object to the residue, as too few on which to rest any 
doctrine of importance : but lest even these might give some 
trouble in the examination, explode them at once with 
the cry of figure, &c. &c. This is the treatment, that 
Scripture too frequently receives, from those who choose to 
call themselves rational and enlightened Commentators. 
There are two texts, however, on which Dr. Priestly has 
thought fit to bestow some critical attention, for the pur- 
pose of shewing, that they are not entitled to rank even 
with those few, that he has enumerated as bearing a 
plausible resemblance to the doctrine in question. From 
his reasoning on these, we shall be able to judge, what the 
candour and justice of his criticisms on the others would 
have been, had he taken the trouble to produce them. 
The two texts are, Isai. 53. 10. ' When thou shalt make 
his soul an offering for sin and 2 Cor. v. 21. 'He made 
Him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made 
the righteousness of God in Him.' Against the first, he 
argues from the disagreement in the versions, which he 



192 



APPENDIX. 



observes may lead us to suspect some corruption in our 
present copies of the Hebrew text. Our translation, he 
says, makes a change of person in the sentence. — ' He hath 
put Him to grief, — When thou shalt make His soul an 
offering for sin, He shall see His seed, fee."' in which, he 
adds, it agrees with no ancient version whatever. In the 
next place, he asserts, that the Syriac alone retains the 
sense of our translation, and at the same time remarks 
that this version of the Old Testament is but of little 
authority. He then gives the reading of the clause, by the 
LXX and the A rabic, ' If ye offer a sacrifice for sin, your 
soul shall see a long-lived offspring.' He concludes with the 
Chaldee paraphrase of Jonathan, which is different from 
all. And from the whole he draws this result, that the un- 
certainty as to the true reading of the original, must render 
the passage of no authority. 

But the real state of the case is widely different from 
this representation : for 1st, our translation does not 
absolutely pronounce upon the change of person, so as to 
preclude an agreement with the ancient versions. 2nd. 
The Syriac is not the only version that retains the sense of 
ours : the Vulgate, which Dr. Priestly has thought proper 
to omit, exactly corresponding in sense. 3rd. The Syriac 
version of the Old Testament, so far from being of little 
authority, is of the very highest. 4th. The concurrence 
of the LXX and the Arabic is not a joint but a single 
testimony, inasmuch as the Arabic is known to be little 
more than a version of the LXX, and consequently can 
lend no farther support, than as verifying the reading of 
the LXX at the time when this version was made : and 
that it does not even authenticate the reading of the LXX 
at an early day, may be collected from the Prolegom. of 
Walton, and Kennicot's state of the Hebrew text, as refer- 
red to in the note below. 5th. The Chaldee paraphrase 
of Jonathan is remarkable (as Bishop Lowth states in his 



APPENDIX. 



193 



Prelim. Dissert.) ' for a wordy allegorical explanation,' so 
that an exactness of translation is not here to be expected. 
And lastly, the apparent differences of the versions may be 
explained by, and fairly reconciled to, the present reading 
of the Hebrew text. 

These several points will be best explained, by beginning 
with the^last. The state of the Hebrew text, as it stands 
in all our present Bibles, at least in such of them as I have 
consulted, viz. Walton's Polyglot, Michaelis, Houbigant, 
Kennicot, Doederlein, &c. and scarcely undergoing any 
variation however minute, from the prodigious variety of 
copies examined by Kennicot and De Rossi, is as follows, 
yiW HKT WZ) DtM* D V OT DM 

Now these words, as they stand, manifestly admit of a 
twofold translation, according as the word Qu;n is con- 
sidered to be of the second person masculine, or the third 
person feminine, viz. — When thou shalt make his soul an 
offering for sin, or when his soul shall make an offering for 
sin : and though, with Ludovicus de Dieu, our present 
translation of the Bible has followed the former in the 
text, yet has it with Cocceius, Montanus, Junius and Tre- 
mellius, Oastellio, and almost every other learned expositor 
of the Bible, retained the latter, inserting it in the margin, 
as may be seen in any of our common Bibles. It deserves 
also to be remarked, that in the old editions of our English 
Bible, (see Matthewe's, Cranmer's, or the Great Bible, and 
Taverner's ; see also the Bibles in the time of Elizabeth, 
viz. the Geneva and Bishops' Bibles ; see all, in short, that 
preceded James's translation,) this latter reading is the 
only one that is given : and it should be observed, (see 
Newcome's Historic. View, p. 105) that one of the rules 
prescribed to the translators employed in the last named 
version, which is the one now in use, was, 4 that where a 
Hebrew or Greek word admitted of two proper senses, one 
should be expressed in the context, and the other in the 

2 c 



194 



APPENDIX. 



margin.' Thus it appears, that Dr. Priestly must have 
glanced his eye, most cursorily indeed, upon our English 
translation, when he charges it so peremptorily with the 
abrupt change of person. 

Again, this very translation, which, beside the older Ex- 
positors above referred to, has the support of Vitringa 
and Bishop Lowth, and is perfectly consistent with the 
most accurate and grammatical rendering of the passage 
in question, agrees sufficiently with the ancient versions. 
In sense there is no difference, and whatever variation 
there is in the expression, may be satisfactorily accounted 
for from a farther examination of the original. Thus in 
the Vulgate it is rendered, ( When he shall make his soul 
an offering for sin, he shall see? fyc. — and in the Syriac, 
' the penalty of sin is laid upon his soulS (that is, in other 
words, his soul is made an offering for sin, that he might see, 
fyc. Now the first is a literal translation of the Hebrew, 
if only instead of U^D be read qw, which we may 
readily suppose some copies of the Hebrew to have done, 
without introducing the smallest uncertainty into the text. 
The second will also be found a literal version, if for UWD 
be read Qt^Jl, which may be taken passively, shall he made. 
Now it appears from Kennicot's various readings, that 
one MS. support this reading. But there is a remark on this 
head made by Houbigant (and which has been overlooked 
both by Bishop Lowth, and the Commentator on Isaiah 
who has succeeded him) that seems to deserve considerable 
notice. The word; he says, should be DtWI, in the passive 
voice : for that, as Morinus observes, the Jews, before the 
vowel points were introduced, were used to mark the pas- 
sive by the letter * interposed : and that here, this Ohal- 
daism had been allowed to remain by the transcriber. — 
See Houbigant in locum. 

Again, with respect to the LXX version of this passage, 
(for as to the Arabic, it need not be taken into account. 



APPENDIX. 



195 



for the reasons before stated,) the difference between it and 
the last mentioned translation is not so great, as on the 
first view might appear. It is true, the reading of the 
LXX, as given in our Polyglot, IS eav Sure, 4 if ye offer :' but 
it is remarked by Bishop Lowth, that in some copies of the 
LXX is Swat, 4 shall be offered which agrees exactly with 
the Syriac. Indeed, as Mr. Dodson very properly observes, 
Siorat may be considered the true reading of the LXX, not 
only on the authority of Clemens R. and Justin, who read 
it so ; but also from the custom, which prevails in Greek 
MSS. of writing « instead of m. This practice is noticed 
by Walton, in his edition of Clem. R. (p. 142.) on the 
words TrpoTpswrt riiiaQ Eiravrw, and is well known to all, who 
are conversant in Greek MSS as obtaining not only at the 
termination of words, as in the instance taken from 
Clemens, but in all parts of the word indifferently. This 
reading is likewise approved by Capellus. Thus far then 
(and this it is to be noted is the niGst important clause in 
the passage) the disagreement between the LXX and the 
other ancient versions is done away. That it differs both 
from them, and the Hebrew text, in some other parts of the 
sentence, must be allowed ; but that from an extensive 
collation of the several MSS (which has now happily been 
at length undertaken) even these differences may yet be 
removed, there is much reason to expect. The confirma- 
tion of the present reading of the Septuagint by the Arabic 
version, is by no means an argument against this ; as that 
version is not above 900 years old, and may therefore have 
been derived from copies of the Septuagint, not the most 
perfect. Besides, it deserves to be remarked, that Bishop 
Lowth (Prelim. Diss.) pronounces the Septuagint version 
of Isaiah, to be inferior to that of any other book in the 
Old Testament ; and in addition to this, to have come down 
to us in a condition exceedingly incorrect. 

Upon the whole then, since the present state of the 



196 



APPENDIX. 



Hebrew text has been shewn to agree with the Syriac, the 
Vulgate, (both of which, it should be Doted, were taken 
from the Hebrew ; one in the first, the other in the fourth 
cantury,) with our English translation, and in a material 
part even with the LXX, we may judge, with what fairness, 
Dr. Priestly's rejection of the present text, on the ground 
of the disagreement of the translations with it and with 
each other, has been conducted. His omission of the 
Vulgate : his overlooking the marginal translation of our 
present, and the text of our older English Bibles, and 
pronouncing peremptorily on their contents in opposition to 
both : his stating the Arabic as a distinct testimony, con- 
curring with the LXX: and his assertion, that the Syriac 
version of the Old Testament is confessed to be of little 
authority, when the direct contrary is the fact, it being 
esteemed by all biblical scholars as of the very highest : — 
and all this done to darken and discard a part of holy 
writ, — cannot but excite some doubt, as to the knowledge, 
or the candour, of the critic. 

With respect to the Syriac version, Bishop Lowth, in 
his Prelim. Dissert, thus expresses himself. After describing 
the Ohaldee paraphrase of Jonathan, which he states to 
have been made about or before the time of our Saviour, he 
says, e the Syriac stands next in order of time, but is 
superior to the Ohaldee in usefulness and authority, as 
well in ascertaining, as in explaining, the Hebrew text : it 
is a close translation of the Hebrew, into a language of 
near affinity to it : it is supposed to have been made as 
early as the first century,'' — Doctor Kennicot also {State of 
the Hebr. text, vol 2. p. 355) speaks in the strongest terms 
of this version, ' which he says, being very literal and very 
ancient, is of inestimable value :' — he concludes it to have 
been ' made about the end of the first century, and that it 
might consequently have been made from Hebrew MSS. 
almost as old as those, which were before translated into 



APPENDIX. 



197 



Greek :' and he of course relies on it, for many of the most 
ancient and valuable readings. The language of De Eossi 
is, if possible, still stronger. ' Versio hsec antiquissima 
ordinem ipsum verborum sacri textus et literam presse 
sectatur; et ex versionibus omnibus antiquis purior ac 
tenacior habeturS ( Var. Led* Vet, Test. Proleg. p. 32.) 
Dathe, also, both in his preface to the Syriac Psalter, and 
in his Opuscula, pronounces in the most peremptory terms 
in favour of the fidelity and the high antiquity of the Syriac 
version. In the latter work particularly, he refers to it as 
a decisive standard by which to judge of the state of the 
Hebrew text in the second century. Dath. Opusc. Coll. a 
Bosenm. p. 171. In this high estimate of the Syriac ver- 
sion, these great critics but coincide with the suffrages of 
Pocock, Walton, and all the most learned and profound 
Hebrew scholars, who in general ascribe it to the Apostolic 
age. — (See Pocock. pref. to Micah, and Walton's Prolegom. 
13.) — Dr. Priestly however has said, that ' it is confessed 
to he of little authority ! P — I have dwelt much too long 
upon this point : but it is of importance that it should be 
well understood, what reliance is to be placed on the 
knowledge, and what credit to be given to the assertions, of 
a writer, whose theological opinions have obtained no small 
degree of circulation in the sister Island, and whose confi- 
dent assumption of critical superiority, and loud complaints 
against the alleged backwardness of divines of the established 
church in biblical investigation, might draw the unwary 
reader into an implict admission of his gratuitious positions. 

I come now to examine his objections against the second 
text, — He made him sin for us, who knew no sin, that we 
might be made the righteousness of God in him. — In this 
passage, the WOrd. afxapria which is translated sin, is con- 
sidered by Hammond, Le Clerc, Whitby, and every respec- 
table Commentator, to mean a sin offering or sacrifice for 
sin : it is so translated expressly by Primate Newcome in 



198 



APPENDIX. 



his new version. That this is the true meaning of the word, 
will readily be admitted, when it is considered that this is 
the application of it in the Hebrew idiom ; and that Jews 
translating their own language into Greek, would give to 
the latter, the force of the corresponding words in the 
former. And that they have done so, is evident from the 
use of the word through the entire of the Greek version of 
the Old Testament, to which the Apostles, when speaking 
in Greek, would naturally have adhered. Dr. Middleton, 
in his answer to Dr. Bentley, remarks, that ' the wdiole 
New Testament is written in a language peculiar to the 
Jews ; and that the idiom is Hebrew or Syriac, though the 
words be Greek.' Michaelis also says, ' the language of 
the New Testament is so intermixed with Hebraisms, that 
many native Greeks might have found it difficult to under- 
stand it." (Introd. to N. T., vol. 1. p. LOO.) Ludovicus 
Capellus, (in speaking of the Greek translators of the Old 
Testament, whose style he says is followed by the writers of 
the New,) asks the question, 4 Quis nescit, verba quidem 
esse Grseca, at phrases et sermonis structuram esse 
Hebrseamf {Grit. Sacr. p. 522.) And Dr. Campbell, in 
his Preliminary Dissertations, pronounces almost in the 
words of Capellus, ' The phraseology is Hebrew, and the 
words are Greek.' The justice of these observations, as 
applying particularly to the expression in the present text, 
is evinced in numerous instances, adduced by Hammond 
and Whitby in locum. And to this very text, the passage 
from Isaiah, which has just been discussed, bears an exact 
correspondence : for, as in that Ms soul, or life, w 7 as to be 
made Dt#^, apiapria, or as the LXX render it, Trspi afiapnag a 
sin offering, so here Christ is said to have been made afiapTia, 
a sin offering ; and for us, as it must have been from what 
is immediately after added, that He knew no sin. For the 
exact coincidence between these passages, Vitringa (Isai. 
53. 10.) deserves particularly to be consulted. Among 



APPENDIX. 



199 



other valuable observations, he shews that nepi afiapriag, we? 
onapnaQ, and afiapna, are all used by the Greek writers, 
among the J ews, in the same sense. Several decisive in- 
stances of this in the New Testament, are pointed out by 
Schleusner, on the word apapna* 

Now from this plain and direct sense of the passage 
in 2 Cor. supported by the known use of the word 
clapnet in Scripture language, and maintained by the 
ablest Commentators on Scripture, Dr. Priestly thinks 
proper to turn away, and to seek in a passage of 
.Romans (8. 3.) to which this by no means necessarily 
refers, a new explanation, which better suits his theory, 
and which, as usual with him, substitutes a figurative, 
in place of the obvious, and literal sense. Thus, because 
in Romans, God is said to have sent his Son in the like- 
ness of Sinful flesh, sv o/*o£a>/zart cap/cog afiapTiag, he Would 

infer, that when in 2 Cor. God is said to have made him sin, 
it is merely meant that God had made him in the likeness of 
sinful flesh. Nor is he content with this unwarrantable 
departure from the language of the text, but he would also 
insinuate (Th. Rep. vol. 1. p. 128.) that the words ^ 
afxapnas which occur in the text in Romans, and which, we 
have already remarked, are commonly used in Scripture 
language for a sin offering, and are so rendered in this 
place by Primate Newcome, merely imply for us, avail- 
ing himself of our present version, which translates the 
words, for sin. Such vague and uncritical expositions of 
Scripture may serve any purpose, but the cause of truth. 
I have already dwelt longer upon them than they deserve ; 
and shall now dismiss them without farther remark." Vol. 
1. pp, 223—243. 

The Archbishop directed his criticism on Isaiah 53. 10. 
against Socinians. Dr. M'Caul, the most successful contro- 
versialist against Jewish interpretation, directs his remarks 
in reply to Rabbinical objections. The learned Doctor first 



APPENDIX. 



gives the objection, and then with his usual clearness 
answers it. The objections opposed to the christian inter- 
pretation of this passage are, First, " That the expression, 
He will prolong his life, in Hebrew, is only applicable to 
temporal life?'' This objection is also urged by R. Isaac;* 
he says, ' We do not find that he prolonged his days, for he 
was put to death at the age of thirty three. Neither can 
christians apply this lengthening of days to his deity, for 
length of days cannot be attributed to God, seeing that he is 
the first, and the last, and of his years there is no end? — 
Answer — We do not apply the lengthening of days to the 
deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, but to his humanity. The 
Lord did indeed die about the thirty-third or fourth year 
of his age. But he could not be holden of the bonds of 
death. The third day his humanity arose from the dead, 
has lived ever since, and will live for evermore. 4 I am He 
that liveth and was dead, and, behold I am alive for ever- 
more. 1 (Rev. 1. 18). We interpret the lengthening of 
days, of the immortal life which the Son of God has com- 
municated to his humanity. The passage is parallel to the 
5th verse of the #lst Psalm, which confessedly refers to the 
Messiah. 4 He asked life of Thee. Thou gavest Him 
length of days for ever and ever.' "un nbty D'Q* "[Tin : 
where, as the passage is not controversial, R. D. Kimchi 
himself confesses that 4 length of days ' means 'eternal 
life. 

ubw itik : ron nbwb w ib idd bm n»n 

" He asked life of thee," means that thou wouldest lengthen 
his days in this world. Length of days means the life of 
the world to come.' Thus, on the showing of the Jews 
themselves, this objection is of no weight. It would never 



* Chizzuk Amimah, part 1., Chap. 22. 



APPENDIX. 



201 



have been urged, if the case were not desperate." Rabbi 

Isaac objects, that our Lord had no children, and therefore 
did not fulfil the words, " He shall see seed.'''' It cannot be 
said that his disciples are his seed; for it is' no where found 
that disciples are called seed. They are only called children 
(□•nj as teachers are called fathers. But the word seed 
(in?) is not applied to any man, excepting the natural off- 
spring. 

Answer — Let us suppose for a moment that Rabbi 
Isaac's assertion is correct, — that in no passage the word 
3TH (seed) occurs in a figurative sense: will it therefore fol- 
low that it cannot occur in a figurative sense? Can any 
substantial reason be assigned why it should not be used 
figuratively, as well as p TV 1132? The expression "chil- 
dren of the prophets," (ED'NOjn on) confessedly means the 
disciples of the prophets. The Israelites are called " chil- 
dren of the living God" (»n bti on) Hos. 2. 1. in the 
English 1. 10. To Ephraim, the word p (son) and TV 
(child) is applied in Jer, 3L 20. " Is Ephraim my dear 
son (p) is he a pleasant child (ih^V Israel is also 
called God's first born, " Israel is my son, my first born," 
btflW nm on Exodus 4. 22. If all these words be used 
figuratively, what reason is there for denying that jnt may 
be used in the same way ? 

But secondly, the assertion that " seed - " must mean the 
natural offspring is not true. It is used of the first born of 
the husband's brother, when the husband had died without 
issue. (See Gen. 38. 8. and Deut. 25. 6.) Here it cannot 
be contended that the child is the natural offspring of the 
deceased. In Isaiah 57. 4. it is used figuratively — " Are ye 
not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood V (iptt? in?) 
And, again, Mai. 2. 15. "a godly seed," D'H^fr* 1T)I In the 
31st verse of the 22nd Psalm, which verse is not controver- 
sial, Aben Ezra himself takes m? (seed) figuratively, " a 
.seed shall serve him, it shall be counted to the Lord," &e, 

2 c 



202 



APPENDIX. 



Aben Ezra renders these words, "a seed which shall serve 
him," &c. and adds, " as if that was a seed, which serveth 
him.'" U"ny» -)U7K 3TW Nin I^ND. Again, in that famous verse, 
Gen. 8. 15. ts I will put enmity between thee and the 
woman, and between thy seed and her seed," we cannot 
understand the natural offspring of the tempter, but those 
who do his works, and are actuated by his spirit." 

M. 

Bishop Lowth's misunderstanding the construction of 
Isaiah 53. 11. led him to hazard the following note on it: — 
" It seems to be only an imperfect repetition, by mistake, of 
the preceding word. It makes a solecism in this place; 
for, according to the constant usage of the Hebrew language, 
the adjective, in a phrase of this kind, ought to follow the 
substantive ; and pH^ in Hebrew would be as absurd 
as ' shall my servant righteous justify,' in English." I won- 
der what sort of a note the learned bishop would have 
indited, if he thought it worth his while to consider philo- 
logically Isaiah 28. 21. mt^D "1? and rTDJ TO would 
have proved to him, even according to the common con- 
struction of the verse before us, that pH¥ was no sole- 
cism, but the Lecturer on Hebrew Poetry left Isaiah 28. 12. 
unnoticed. 

N. 

Bishop Lowth's anxiety to reduce all the poetical writings 
of the Old Testament to parallelisms, led him to translate 
the first two clauses of the passage in the text, 

" Therefore will I distribute to Him the many for His portion ; 
And the mighty people shall He share for His spoil." 



APPENDIX. 



203 



There is certainly a parallelism in the Bishop's translation, 
but, by no means in Isaiah's original. Dr. Lowth evidently 
followed the LXX and Vulgate construction, an imitation 
which he himself thinks is not always safe. Henderson, 
though he says in his note on this clause, " 1 must be suf- 
fered to retain its usual signification of with, among" has 
incorrectly adopted the last signification he mentioned in 
his text, and translated Isaiah's words thus : — 

" Therefore, I will divide for Him a portion among the great, 
And with the strong He shall divide the spoil." 

This translation is certainly " more philologically correct " 
than the Bishop's, but certainly not altogether correct. 
The 1 has no other meaning here than it has in Gen. 32. 21, 
in the expression : — nrum V33 rnsriK and in many other 
places ; and the word has the regular accusative import. 

O. 

I have no hesitation in saying that if the words in Daniel 
(8. 24.) had suggested themselves to Lowth, Hengstenberg, 
Henderson, Barnes, and to many others of the great Bibli- 
cal critics, they would have observed a great deal more, 
than they have done, in Isaiah 53. 12. For fear of being 
too elaborate, I have been rather brief in my critical 
remarks. 



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